•ii'. 




I :; ,•••' i. 



^;.> 



'.<»-.( 




^ oV 

.v^^^;. ^^^^ ^^, 






yo 



v^^^^_— 














-^A V^ 



Wells of English, 



BY 

ISAAC BASSETT 'CHOATE. 



'Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled." 

Spenser's Faerie Queejie. 



:\^S OP --^/Vy^ 



^.^?> 



f V 



rOP^'f^'GHr "^vT 



5 1BQ? ^ J ^ 






BOSTON: 

ROBERTS BROTHERS. 
1802. 



\ -4 <:a^;;^x 




Copyright, 1891, 
By Roberts Brothers. 




John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 



N. 



_ ^ v..^*v. T.^iv, a.ixy iiccu wucttcvcr oi ilic sanctioii of 
J. some name of weight and authority upon liter- 
ary matters to justify a careful, painstaking study of 
the less-known contributors to early English literature, 
it would be quite enough to refer one to what is said 
by Principal Shairp in regard to the exclusive study 
which is commonly given to a few master-spirits whom 
he calls ''the great world-poets of all times." Of 
those who have never aspired to this high rank he 
has these generous words to say : — 

"For the whole host of lesser, though still genuine, 
poets, much more for the source whence all poetry 
comes, we are apt to have but scanty regard. It is well, 
perhaps, that for a short time, as students, we should so 
concentrate our gaze; for we thus get a standard of 
what is noblest in thought and most perfect in expres- 
sion. But this exclusiveness should continue but a little 
while, and for a special purpose. If it be prolonged into 
life, if we continue only to admire and enjoy a few poets 
of the greatest name, we become, while fancying our- 
selves to be large-minded, narrow and artificial." 

More concisely stated, the perfectly reasonable argu- 
ment amounts to this, that we should go to the great 
poets to learn what our Hterature ought to be, but 



Copyright, 1891, 
By Roberts Brothers. 




John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 



INTRODUCTION, 



IF there were any need whatever of the sanction of 
some name of weight and authority upon liter- 
ary matters to justify a careful, painstaking study of 
the less-known contributors to early English literature, 
it would be quite enough to refer one to what is said 
by Principal Shairp in regard to the exclusive study 
which is commonly given to a few master-spirits whom 
he calls "the great world-poets of all times." Of 
those who have never aspired to this high rank he 
has these generous words to say : — 

"For the whole host of lesser, though still genuine, 
poets, much more for the source whence all poetry 
comes, we are apt to have but scanty regard. It is well, 
perhaps, that for a short time, as students, we should so 
concentrate our gaze; for we thus get a standard of 
what is noblest in thought and most perfect in expres- 
sion. But this exclusiveness should continue but a little 
while, and for a special purpose. If it be prolonged into 
life, if we continue only to admire and enjoy a few poets 
of the greatest name, we become, while fancying our- 
selves to be large-minded, narrow and artificial." 

More concisely stated, the perfectly reasonable argu- 
ment amounts to this, that we should go to the great 
poets to learn what our literature ought to be, but 



vi INTRODUCTION. 

to those of lower rank to find out what our literature 
has been and is. What is here said of the poets is 
equally applicable to prose writers in relation to purely 
literary work. 

It is also to be considered that there are whole 
libraries of books that have been written upon Chaucer, 
Shakespeare, and Milton. Many of the less-known 
subjects require to be studied at first hand; that is, in 
their writings themselves. The general reader only 
here and there comes across some faint allusion to 
them or to their work. The clew thus found will lead 
direct to our best Hbraries, and a Httle searching will 
prove how small a proportion of the literature of more 
than two hundred and fifty years ago is to be found 
there. The disappointment will be all the easier to be 
borne when it is considered that this condition of things 
illustrates well the doctrine of the survival of the fit- 
test. It could not be otherwise than that much that 
was good in the past, if not some even of the best, 
should be eclipsed by the constantly improving quahty 
of an advancing literature. 

As the history of letters is continuous in the same 
manner as the history of the race goes on without a 
break, it is not difficult to trace many an impulse it 
has here and there received from delicate touches in 
the past. No one can fail to see that every indication 
of improvement in English letters as well as in English 
life and character stands for some good, honest work 
in England's past. This thought gives interest to the 
man who stands back of the work, and it forms a bond 
of comradeship among those who have toiled in the 
past and those who are toiling now in the common 



INTRODUCTION. Vll 

field. It puts the present leader, in touch with kin- 
dred spirits all along the line. 

The field of inquiry into which the student of our 
literature enters, presents numberless points of interest 
and as many points of view to be chosen according to 
individual taste. There are thousands who have given 
some new thought or new turn of expression to our lit- 
erature, and there are other thousands who deserve 
not to be forgotten, because they have themselves saved 
from forgetfulness what was becoming obscure and ob- 
solete in their time. The claims of all these are in a 
certain measure recognized whenever with painstaking 
care we turn to study the work of any deserving one of 
their number. Slowly the great host breaks into sepa- 
rate groups, from which a representative man may 
easily be taken. 

It is to be said, by way of recommending to study 
authors of less reputation, that these deal more com- 
monly with affairs of everyday life right about them. 
They see things at a closer view than do those who 
are favored with diviner vision. Their lives and their 
fortunes are likely to coincide more nearly with the 
life the masses lead. Their work throbs with purely 
human pulses. They give a clear estimate of the 
v/orth of life to them, and that is about its worth to 
the toiling masses whom they represent. Through 
them we gain a touch with humanity across the ages 
as close and warm and true as the hand clasp of a 
friend. 

It is just this intimate social acquaintance with our 
early English authors and with tliose for whom they 
wrote that the \\Titer of these sketches has sought to 



Vlll INTRODUCTION. 

gain at the same time that he was forming an intellec- 
tual acquaintance with their work. His researches have 
led him by many pleasant ways through England under 
a morning sky, and often has he come upon a path 
in Old England that led straight over here to New 
England, — 

But to a broader view this home 's entire ; 

Our mother-tongue is heard in either part, 
Our altars kindled from a common fire, 

Our pulses beating from one single heart. 

The writer has dipped but rarely here and there from 
what was at once the supply and the outflow of a deep 
national life. If any reader feels inclined to follow to 
these springs of our common literature, he is promised 
an introduction such as shall at any rate secure a cor- 
dial greeting and a social glass at least to quaff from 
these Wells of English. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Introduction v 

I. Thomas of Erceldoune . ..!'.... ii 

11. John Barbour 2i 

III. William Langland 29 

IV. John Ball 37 

V. Henry Bradshaw 44 

VI. John Skelton 52 

VII. William Dunbar 60 

VIII. Robert Henryson 67 

IX. Sir Thomas More 73 

X. Sir Thomas Elyot 81 

XI. Sir Thomas Wyatt 89 

XII. Thomas Tusser 95 

XIII. Henry Howard 103 

XIV. George Puttenham no 

XV. Sir Walter Raleigh 117 

XVI. George Chapman 125 

XVII. Robert Greene 132 

XVIII. Samuel Daniel 139 

XIX. Joshua Sylvester 146 

XX. Michael Drayton 151 

XXI. Cyril Tourneur . , 159 



X TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

XXII. Christopher Marlowe i66 

XXIII. Thomas Middleton 174 

' XXIV. John Marston 182 

XXV. Thomas Heywood 189 

XXVI. John Taylor 197 

XXVII. Philip Massinger 204 

XXVIII. Robert Herrick 211 

XXIX. Izaak Walton 217 

XXX. James Shirley 223 

XXXI. Thomas Browne 229 

XXXII. Thomas Randolph 236 

XXXIII. Thomas Fuller 244 

XXXIV. William Cartwright 251 

XXXV. Richard Crashawe 258 

XXXVI. Sir Roger L'Estrange 266 

XXXVII. Richard Lovelace 273 

XXXVIII. William Chamberlayne 281 

XXXIX. Andrew Marvell 287 

XL. John Evelyn 294 

Index 303 



WELLS OF ENGLISH. 



THOMAS OF ERCELDOUNE. 

I 240-1 298. 

WHENEVER we are talking about Chaucer and 
call him " the father of English poetry," we 
think, as a matter of course, that the form at least 
of Enghsh verse was settled by him, or at any rate 
by the poets of his time who lived in the South of 
England. It is a common impression that before his 
day all the elements of our poetry were lying in dis- 
order and open to license. They are often spoken of 
as then having first been reduced to law and system. 
This popular opinion would also be a perfectly reason- 
able one if we were allowed in studying our literature 
to reason upon analogies. The parts about London 
were far in advance of those north of the Tweed six 
hundred years ago in all refinement and embellishment 
of common life, — very much farther, no doubt, than at 
the present day. Equal advancement would naturally 
be looked for in the literature of the South. There is 
good reason, however, for thinking that this view would 
be unjust to the people of the North and historically 
inexact. 



12 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

The very excellent reason we have for this conclu- 
sion is that the verse of Thomas of Erceldoune (Brewer 
says his real name was Learmouth), or Thomas the 
Rhymer, as he is often called, does not suffer in any 
respect upon comparison with that of Chaucer. And 
yet it belongs to a period a full century earlier. It 
may be admitted that the language of the Scottish 
bard is less polished than that which his English suc- 
cessor uses ; but this only reflects the greater skill 
with which the ruder implement is wielded. Chaucer 
was born about 1340, while the career of Thomas 
the Rhymer can be traced with certainty not later 
than 1286. Keeping these dates in mind, we are pre- 
pared to judge of Scottish poetry before it could have 
profited by models from the South. The reader will 
allow the spelling to be modernized, but otherwise the 
opening lines of the poem are given according to the 
Cambridge manuscript. 

" As I me went this andyrs day, 

Fast on my way making my moan 
In a merry morning of May, 

By Huntley's banks myself alone, 
I heard the jay and the throstel. 

The mavis moaned in her song, 
The woodwale farde as a bell, 

That the wood about me rung." 

There are but few words here that require any 
explanation. The glossary printed by the Early Eng- 
lish Text Society gives " bygone " as the meaning of 
" andyrs " in the first line. " Mavis," in the sixth line, 
is still used by Scotch writers as the name of a thrush. 
In the next hne the word " farde " has the meaning, 
"vociferated." With this help the meaning of the 
passage will be clear to the reader, who will not fail to 



THOMAS OF ERCELDOUNE. 1 3 

note the easy movement of the verse. There is partic- 
ularly to be noted throughout the entire poem of seven 
hundred lines a peculiar liJting, which seems to be 
secured by introducing one dactyl. The scansion 
cannot, however, be profitably discussed without going 
back to the original spelling and observing the accent 
of the Rhymer's day. The lilting has marked Scotch 
poetry as compared with English in all the centuries 
since, and it is one of the beauties of Scotch songs. In 
connection with this matter of the movement of the 
verse, it will be observed that the older poet avails 
himself of alternating rhyme, while Chaucer uses the 
rhymed couplet. Upon a question of taste such as is 
presented here, one expresses an opinion only at a 
risk ; and yet the writer ventures to say that he likes 
the older form the better. 

The reader may have patience even to compare this 
introduction with that of Chaucer's in matter as well as 
in form. The latter is the longer, in keeping with the 
scope of the poet's plan. Both introduce us to an 
English spring. The Rhymer does this by the particu- 
lar mention of four of his favorite songsters. Two of 
these he characterizes. This special attention is famil- 
iar and affectionate. It speaks well for the heart and 
for the taste of Thomas. A man is known by the 
company he keeps. We thank the poet for this glimpse 
of his social life. He had, we know, good friends and 
cheerful converse. Did he get that lilt of his, I wonder, 
from the "woodwale," or woodlark? 

Chaucer, too, had his friendships with the birds, as 
every poet has, but he does not specify his favorites. 
He presents them in a general way, and he does this 
in one of the daintiest couplets ever written by him or 
by any poet, — 



14 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

" And smale fowles maken melodic, 
That slepen all the night with open eye." 

In choosing spring as the season in which they 
would have their stories begin, the two poets are 
agreed. There is peculiar fitness in Thomas's having 
his poem open with a warm, life-like touch of nature, 
since his narrative is so soon to take him into super- 
natural scenes and events. 

We have come now to the subject-matter itself of 
the old Scotch poem. It is of the nature of prophecy. 
It deals with affairs of the future as revealed through 
some medium of magic. As Homer sends his hero to 
Tiresias in the under-world for a knowledge of the 
future, and as Virgil brings about an interview between 
^neas and the shade of his dead father for a similar 
purpose, so Thomas finds occasion to bring in super- 
natural agencies. These differ essentially, however, 
from the Greek and Roman ideas of intelligence be- 
yond that which is shared by mortals. These agencies 
are the " good people " of the land of fairy. They 
hold so large a place in our literature that it would be 
of interest to discover their original forms. This is too 
much to be hoped for now. The notions long ago pre- 
valent in northern Europe have become too greatly 
confused ever to be reduced to simple ideas again. 
But the farther back our reading runs, the clearer view 
we get of that mystical land between the evening and 
the morning light. The Rhymer, as we shall see, leads 
to a vista which later poets have failed to rediscover. 

The plan of the prophecy is easily unfolded, but it 
shows the invention of the poet to be not unequal to 
his skill in versification. The dii^culty of following 
him to the Land of Faerie is not less to make out 



THOMAS OF ERCELDOUNE. 15 

whether he is in the body or out of the body than to 
find in what direction he goes. It begins as a revery : 

" All in a longing as Hay 

Underneath a comely tree, 
Saw I where a lady gay 

Came riding over a lovely lea." 

After declaring his inability to describe this lady, 
even though his tongue were to " wrobble and wrye " 
[wriggle and twist] until doomsday, he goes on, for 
about seventy-five lines, to give an account of her 
apparel, her horse and its trappings, her greyhounds 
in leash, and dogs running by her side. 

This description breaks the continuity of the story, 
so that when the narrative is resumed it is in the third 
person. 

" Thomas lay and saw that sight, 
Underneath a seemly tree ; 
He said, ' Yond is Mary of might, 
That bare the Child that died for me.' " 

Instantly he forms the purpose of speaking with the 
lady, and agrees to meet her at " eldryne tree." 

" He kneeled down upon his knee, 

Underneath the greenwood spray ; 
* Lovely lady ! thou rue on me, 

Queen of heaven, as thou well may ! * 
Then spake that lady, mild of thought, 

'Thomas, let such wordes be ; 
For queen of heaven am I not, — 

I took never so high degree. 
But I am a lady of another countree. 

If I be apparelled most of price, 
I ride after the wild fee [cattle], 

My raches [dogs] run at my device.' " 

The Rhymer comes under the magical power of this 
strange lady, who says to him, — 



1 6 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

" ' Take thy leave, Thomas, at [of] sun and noon, 

And also at leaves of eldryne tree ; 
This twelvemonth shalt thou with me gone, 

That middle earth thou shalt not see. ' 
He kneeled down upon his knee, 

To Mary mild he made his moan ; 
* Lady ! but thou rue on me, 

All my games from me are gone.' " 

This petition was addressed to the Virgin Mary, but 
it availed nothing. The "lady gay" becomes his 
guide. 

" She led him to the eldryn hill, 
Underneath the greenwood lea, 
Where it was dark as any hell, 
And ever water till the knee." 

For three days he heard only the noise of the flood, 
when, overcome by hunger, he was led into a " fair 
arbor,'^ where were growing pears and apples, dates 
and figs. In this arbor the nightingales were building, 
the popinjays were flitting about, and 

" The throstle song would have no rest." 

Thomas pressed to pluck the fruit with his hand, 
when the lady interposed with, — 

" ' If thou pull, thee sooth to say, 
Thy soul goeth to the fire of hell ; 
It comes never out till doomsday, 
But there ever in pain to dwell.' " 

There seems to be in this a reminiscence of Paradise 
and of the forbidden fruit ; but the sequel shows that 
this " arbor " was wholly an invention of the poet. 
The lady calls Thomas to lay his head upon her knee, 
and she will describe to him all the region into which 
they come. 



THOMAS OF ERCELDOUNE. 1/ 

** He laid his head as she him bade ; 

His head upon her knee he laid, 
Her to please he was full glad, 

And then that lady to him she said, — 
* Seest thou now yon fair way 

That liest over yonder mountain ? 
Yonder is the way to heaven for aye, 

When sinful souls have 'dured their pain. 

** * Seest thou now, Thomas, yonder way 

That lieth low beneath yon rise ? 
Yonder is the way, the sooth to say. 

Into the joys of Paradise. 
Seest thou yet yon third way 

That lieth over yonder plain ? 
Yonder is the way, the sooth to say. 

Where sinful souls shall drye [endure] their pain. 

" * Seest thou now yonder fourth way, 
That lieth over yonder fell ? 
Yonder is the way, the sooth to say, 
Unto the burning fire of hell.' " 

There is, no doubt, some connection between these 
four ways and the four cardinal points of the compass. 
The ^ovciZXi flameji divided the heavens into four parts 
for purposes of divination, and this strange gramerie of 
the North had an origin somewhere in common with 
that practice. Where Thomas and the lady were at 
this time does not appear ; but from what followed we 
infer that it is not in the middle earth, — that Midgard 
of the Scandinavians, the hyperborean residence of 
their gods ; they are within sight of the lady's abode. 

" * Seest thou now yonder fair castel 

That standeth upon yonder fair hill? 

Of town and tower it beareth the bell ; 
In middle earth is not like there-till. 

In faith, Thomas, yonder is mine own 
And the king's of this countrie.' "• 

2 



1 8 WELLS OF ENGLLSH. 

As the castle belongs to her and to the king, it be- 
comes plain that the lady is the queen of the land of 
faerie. She proposes to go on in advance of Thomas, 
and he is to follow, as we see from the directions given 

him. 

'* * When thou comest to yon castle gay, 
I pray thee courteous man to be ; 
And whatso any to thee say, 
Look thou answer none but me.' " 

Upon the arrival of the lady at her castle, Thomas 
is with her again. 

"Into a hall soothly she went, 
Thomas followed at her hand ; 
Ladies came both fair and great 
Full courteously to her kneeling." 

The music and dancing are described in full ; also 
the preparation for a banquet. How short seemed the 
time of his stay to the Rhymer we see from what he 
says of his being sent home upon the coming of a 
" foul fiend of hell." His tarry seemed to have been 
for only three days, whereas it had been for seven 

years. 

" There was revel, game and play. 
More than I you say parde, 
Till it fell upon a day, 
My lovely lady said to me : 
' Busk thee, Thomas, for thou must gone, 
For here no longer mayest thou be ; 
Hie thee fast, with mode and moan, 
I shall thee bring to eldryn tree.' 
Thomas answered with heavy cheer, 

* Lovely lady, thou let me be ; 
For certainly I have been here 
But the space of dayes three.* 

* Forsooth, Thomas, I thee tell, 

Thou hast been here seven year and more ; 
For here no longer may thou dwell, 
I shall tell thee the skill wherefore.' " 



THOMAS OF ERCELDOUNE. 19 

After telling the Rhymer of the coming of the fiend 
who — 

" ' Amang this folke will feche his fee,' 
She brought him again to eldryn tree, 
Underneath the greenwood spray ; 
On Huntley banks as merry to be, 
Where fowles sing both night and day." 

This brings the poet back to the very spot which he 
left only seven years before, and ends the first '' fytte," 
as it is called. All this invention serves only as an 
introduction. How he gained the gift of prophecy 
is next told. The lady turns away from Huntley 
banks. 

" * Farewell, Thomas, I wend my way ; 
I may no longer stand with thee ! ' 
' Give me some token, lady gay, 
That I may say I spake with thee ! ' " 

She promises him that he shall always speak the 
truth, and begs that he will speak no ill of her. Then 
she turns again to leave him. 

" * Farewell, Thomas, and well thou be, 
I can no longer stand thee by.' 
* Lovely lady, fair and free, 
Tell me yet of some ferlie ! ' " 

This last request for '' ferlie " [fairy lore] calls out 
not only some explanation of what faerie is, but also 
many prophecies relating to the future fortunes of 
Scotland, chiefly in its wars. These constitute the 
body of the poem. They are of little interest now, but 
their popularity through many centuries is, no doubt, 
the one circumstance to which we owe the preservation 
of a poem of singular beauty in its conception and 



20 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

language. Those early notions of fairy land were 
strikingly distinct. It was this wonderful fulness and 
exactness of conception which gave the belief the 
strong hold it had, and has always kept, upon the 
imaginations of the people. 



II. 

JOHN BARBOUR. 

I3i6?-i395. 

THIS Scotch poet belongs to the same period as 
Chaucer, — the latter half of the fourteenth 
century. Although the date of his birth is not known, 
yet we do know that he died an old man in 1395, just 
five years earher than his famous English contempo- 
rary. This association in time, but separation in place, 
makes a comparison of the work of these two poets 
especially interesting to the student of our language. 
The English poet wrote for London readers; the 
Scotch bard used the language which was familiar to 
the men about him at Aberdeen. Their writings 
afford us specimens of English from the extremities of 
its domain. It is to be regretted that we have not a 
manuscript copy of Barbour bearing an earlier date 
than 1478. This matters less, however, since the vari- 
ations were likely to be chiefly in the spelling of the 
words. Copyists are always held more closely to the 
vocabulary of the original in making a transcript of 
poetry than in copying prose. Any variation from the 
original is apt to affect the rhythm. 

Under the strange disguises of various spellings, it is 
really wonderful how large a proportion of Barbour's 
words are easily recognizable as in good and common 
use to-day. The meaning or the appUcation may have 
changed from what it was in Scotland five hundred 



22 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

years ago, but the words themselves are parts of living 
English. A good example of this vitality is Barbour's 
frequent use of the phrase " in hy," meaning " in haste." 
The connection is easily made, however, just as soon as 
we recall that the verb " to hie," meaning " to hasten," 
still in good use in English everywhere, is nothing 
other than the verbal use of Barbour's noun " hy," 
haste. Making allowance, then, for the wayward spell- 
ing of the poet, which sometimes gives us four distinct 
forms for a single word, and which, in other instances, 
makes one form answer for four distinct words, it is 
not a little surprising to find a larger percentage of 
Barbour's words than of Chaucer's living in our speech 
at the present day. While upon this point of spelling, 
it may be remarked in a general way that the varia- 
tions were largely in the vowels, and that the tendency 
here was towards the more open. The vowel " a " 
predominates. This appears from the use of "ma" 
instead of "mo," of which we have the comparative 
form " more." The same word "ma " is used for the 
auxiliary "may; " and very often it is found used for 
our word " make." 

Going back now to the circumstance that Barbour's 
vocabulary is more purely English than that of 
Chaucer, this may be accounted for partly on the 
ground that French was at that time in quite common 
use in England, as it had been from the time of the 
Conqueror, while in Scotland French does not appear 
to have become fashionable before the days of Mary 
Stuart. Still further may the fact be accounted for on 
the ground that Chaucer borrowed much of his mate- 
rial from foreign sources, chiefly from French and 
Italian writers ; and his work partook more or less of 
the character of translation, where the translator allows 



JOHN BARBOUR. 23 

his original to dominate his speech as well as his 
thought, while on the other hand Barbour told at first- 
hand the story of the patriotism and the valor of his 
own countrymen. 

i\gain, we may compare the language of this North- 
ern poet with that of Thomas of Erceldoune, and we 
shall find results unexpected to many. Barbour was 
well acquainted with the works of the Rhymer, for he 
refers to one of his prophecies, — 

" I hope that Thomas' prophecy 
Of Erceldoune shall [verray] be 
In him ; for, so Our Lord help me ! 
I have great hope he shall be king, 
And have this land all in leading." 

This Thomas was a Lowland Scotch poet of just 
about one hundred years earlier date than Barbour. 
What will strike the reader of these two poets is the 
fact that so far as the forms of words are concerned 
and their construction, the earlier writer is the one 
who conforms the more nearly to the use of English 
in our own time. The conclusion to which this dis- 
covery naturally and inevitably leads us is that dialect, 
in English at any rate, is a matter of place rather than 
of time ; it is local, not temporal. 

This almost necessitates a remark upon the growing 
use of the phrase, "Middle English." It has been 
brought in, no doubt, in imitation of such phrases as 
" Middle High-German," and so on. To the view 
presented above, " Middle English " ought to signify 
the dialect spoken in the midland counties, where was 
formerly the kingdom of Mercia. Another point not 
to be overlooked here is the recent usage of speaking 
of translations from early English into the English of 
our day. The pretentiousness of such talk is not easy 



24 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

to be borne. Barbour is properly classed with early 
English writers ; but in his case very little is needed 
to make him intelligible to modern readers except to 
change his spelling. Speaking for myself, I can only 
say that when I read this fourteenth-century poet, the 
pleasure he gives me awakens a regret that I have not 
trained myself to the use of English as pure as his. 

Barbour is known by his romantic story of '* Robert 
Bruce," — a poem of nearly fourteen thousand verses. 
That he did not intend this for strictly accurate history, 
is evident from what he says in the first book, — 

*' Lordings who likis for to hear, 
The romance now begynnys here." 

To show his method of treatment, the interview be- 
tween Bruce and the goodwife of the house to which 
he came in expectation of finding there James Douglas 
and Sir Edward Bruce, is here cited, — 

" She asked him soon what he was, 
And whence he came, and where he goes. 
*A travelling man, dame,' said he, 
' That travels here through the country.' 
She said, ' All that travelling are, 
For sake of one, are welcome here.' 
The king said, ' Good dame, what is he 
That gars [makes] you have such specialty 
To men that travel ? ' ' Sir, perfay,' 
Quoth the good wife, ' I will you say ; 
Good king Robert the Bruce is he, 
That is right lord of this country. 
His foes him holdis now in throng. 
But I think to see before ought long 
Him lord and king o'er all the land, 
That no foes him shall withstand.' 
' Dame, lovest thou him so well .? ' said he. 

* Yea, sir,' she said, ' so God me see.' 

* Dame,' said he, ' lo ! him here thee by, 
For I am he.' ' Say ye soothly "i ' 



JOHN BARBOUR. 2$ 

' Yea, certes, dame.' * And where are gone 

Your men, when ye are thus alone ? ' 

' At this time, dame, I have no ma [more].' 

She said, ' It may no wise be swa [so] ; 

I have two sons wight and hardy, 

They shall become your men in hy [haste].' 

As she devised, they have done ; 

His sworn men become they soon. 

The wife gart [made] soon him sit and eat, 

But he had short while at the meat 

Sitting, when he heard great stamping 

About the house ; then, but letting [without waiting], 

They start up, the house to defend ; 

But soon after the king has kenned 

James of Douglas ; then was he blithe, 

And bade open the doors swith [quickly], 

And they come in, all that they were, 

Sir Edward the Bruce was there." 

This is the true romantic style of narrative. Bar- 
bour is writing in 137S of what took place in 1307. 
He enters into particulars such as an eye-witness would 
scarcely be expected to notice and report. By pre- 
senting the parties to this interview in their own 
proper characters, the poet secures a good degree of 
dramatic interest. The poem sacrifices all elements 
of an epic character to the narrative form. It takes 
in the history of forty-six years, — the period between 
1286 and 1332. The interest is therefore centred in 
its hero rather than in any single exploit of his. Al- 
though the account of this period is sufficiently true 
to the facts in the case, yet the truthfulness of the 
poem is mainly that element which holds it in sympa- 
thy with the spirit of the age. 

The reader of Barbour will not fail to see how 
greatly Sir Walter Scott was indebted to this early 
work, not only for material, — which the later poet 
acknowledges repeatedly — but even more, we can 



26 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

believe, for the artistic handling of his subject. In the 
mere matter of metre, the eight-sy]]abled verse of 
Barbour furnishes the basis of all Scott's romantic 
measures. But more than all else to the later poet 
was the spirit which he imbibed from his early master. 
Barbour proved that romanticism could live through 
the fierce contentions of the Crusades, and even thrive 
from the fervor of religious enthusiasm ; Scott showed 
that the earnest, single-minded purpose of the Refor- 
mation was no more unfriendly to that apparently alien 
spirit. It remains for those who are curious in such 
matters to observe how romanticism fares at the hands 
of the practical philistinism of to-day. 

Barbour is at his best — as no doubt every poet is 
at his best — when roused by some strong and worthy 
feeling. The passage in which he describes the con- 
dition of the Scotch people under Edward I. of Eng- 
land, and his reflections upon that point, is one of the 
best-known parts of the whole poem, — 

" Alas ! that folk that ever was free, 
And in freedom wont for to be, 
Through their great mischance and folly 
Were treated then so wickedly 
That their foes their judges were ; 
What wretchedness may man have more ! 
Ah, freedom is a noble thing ! 
Freedom makes man to have liking; 
Freedom all solace to man gives ; 
He lives at ease that freely lives ! 
A noble heart may have none ease, 
Nor ellys [else] nought that may him please, 
If freedom fall ; for free liking 
Is yearned o'er all other things." 

The allusions to outward Nature are not very fre- 
quent in Barbour, but when they do occur they remind 
us strongly of Chaucer. The feeling of those early 



i 



JOHN BARBOUR. 2/ 

poets for the beauty about them was something gen- 
uine. It amounts to a sympathy so close and true as 
to lead to confidences on the part of Nature such as a 
less worthy generation of poets is not often permitted 
to share. The following will show how easily and nat- 
urally the moral character in the elements unfolded 
itself to the poet's view : — 

*' This was in ver [spring], when winter tide 
With his blastis, hideous to bide, 
Was overdriven, and birdis small, 
As throstel and the nightingale, 
Began right merrily to sing 
And for to make in their singing 
Sundry notes and soundis sere [various]. 
And melody pleasant to hear; 
And the trees began to ma [make] 
Bourgeons [buds] and bright blooms alswa [also], 
To win the healing of their hevede [head], 
That wicked winter had them revede [reft] ; 
And all groves began to spring. 
Into that time the noble king," etc. 

The humor of Barbour is pure Scotch. The exhibi- 
tions of it are few, chiefly in cutting repartee, and it 
shows grim whenever it does appear. A good exam- 
ple of it occurs near the end of the poem. After the 
death of Bruce, Douglas visits Seville in Spain. Here 
he receives the Spanish knights, who are attracted by 
In's fame. One of these prided himself upon having 
his face all covered over with scars received in combat. 
The interview with Douglas was not a lengthy one, — 

" Ere he the Lord Douglas had seen, 
He weened [thought] his face had wounded been, 
But never a hurt in it had he. 
When he unwounded can [did] it see. 
He said that he had great ferly [wonder] 
That such a knight and so worthy, 



28 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

And prized of so great bounty, 

Might in the face unwounded be. 

And he [Douglas] answered thereto meekly 

And said, ' Love [praise] God, all time had I 

Handis my head for to guard.' " 

Long as is " The Bruce," there are points where the 
poet excuses himself from admitting matters that would 
properly come within the scope of his poem. One of 
these occasions is where he leaves a fuller account of 
the exploits of Douglas to the song-writers of his day : 

" I will not rehearse all the manner ; 

For whoso likis, they may hear 
Young women, when they will play, 
Sing it among them ilke [every] day.'* 

It shows a fine literary sense in Barbour that he 
omitted from his semi-historical narration those matters 
that were better suited to lyric treatment, since his un- 
varying measure must have suffered from comparison 
with the lilting songs of the Scottish maidens. That 
competition was not to be dreaded by Scott, and he 
was comparatively free to introduce lyric passages of' 
great variety into poems similar to "The Bruce." 



III. 

WILLIAM LANGLAND. 

i332?-i400? 

BY a singular mistake on the part of his readers, 
Langland has not infrequently been confounded 
with the leading character in his poem. It is pretty 
clear that they fell into the error in this way : The 
title to the poem was " Vision de Piers Plowman." 
Readers took the de to be French, and read the title 
"Vision of Piers Plowman." The work is commonly 
so spoken of to this day. A reading of it will quickly 
show that the de of the title is Latin, and that the 
poem is the "Vision concerning Piers the Plowman." 
The most superficial examination of the work will make 
plain the fact that Latin quotations are to be met there 
at least ten times as often as French. 

One circumstance made this mistake in identity easy 
and natural, and that was the immediate popularity of 
the "Vision." Piers Plowman became at once a real- 
ity with the people. " Pierce the Plowman's Crede " 
appeared as early as 1394, and "The Plowman's Tale" 
about a year later. The real author of these is not 
known ; but that he took " Piers the Plowman " for 
his pseudonym proves that the name had become a 
household term in England. 

The "Vision concerning Piers the Plowman" is 
classed with " Early English " literature. It belongs to 



30 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

the same period as the " Canterbury Tales " of Chaucer, 
and is read with about the same ease or difficulty as 
that work, according as the reader has or has not made 
a study of our fourteenth-century writers. For it is not 
to be disputed that English of that period does require 
special study ; it is only insisted upon here that the 
amount of study is not excessive, and that it is not 
unrewarded. 

The precise date of Langland's birth is not known, 
nor is that of his death. Mr. Skeat places the date of 
his birth as early as 1332, and that of his death as 
late as 1400. The years of his life devoted to writing 
are more nearly made out from allusions to well-known 
events. He was certainly engaged upon the " Vision " 
as early as 1362, and he continued to revise, transcribe, 
and expand this work until 1393. Another work of 
his, " Richard the Redeles," — that is, " Richard Lack- 
ing Counsel," — was completed as late as 1399. In 
this the author speaks of himself as an old man, and 
it is reasonable to conclude that his task was then 
finished. 

That Langland and Chaucer chanced to be writing 
at the same time, very naturally leads to a comparison 
of their work. In this there is little, except the lan- 
guage, in common. The two men belonged to two 
different classes, and classes were very wide apart in 
those days. We can easily set these authors in their 
proper social relation. Chaucer's wife was a sister-in- 
law of John of Gaunt, whose London palace was 
burned by the insurgents under Wat Tyler in 1381, 
at the very time when John Ball, their chaplain, was 
urging Piers Plowman to keep to his work. Chaucer 
was the genial story-teller to whose view the world 
was an easy-going one. His several characters are 



WILLIAM LANG LAND. 31 

distinguished by some one highly cultivatea virtue, 
whicli is exhibited under any and all circumstances. 
The England which he paints for us is a " merrie Eng- 
land " indeed, if only it is what he represents it. Lang- 
land's method is quite different. He shows us men 
and women all imperfect ; the best are none too good, 
the worst not altogether bad. The world as he sees it 
in his "Vision " is a real one, but it is a hard one. 

Of Langland himself we get but faint glimpses in the 
" Vision." In the "^lyiih passus^ or canto, he says, — 

"And I live in London and on London both ; 
The looms that I laljor with, and livelihood deserve, 
Is Pater izoste?" and my primer, placebo and dirige^ 
And my psalter some time, and my seven psalms. 
Thus I sing for their souls of such as me helpen, 
And those that find me my food vouchen safe, I trow, 
To be welcome when I come." 

From this and other passages it is plain that the 
author was a clergyman in orders. The same conclu- 
sion would be inferred from his familiarity with the 
Scriptures, which he quotes in the Latin Vulgate. Mr. 
Skeat supposes him to have been one of a great num- 
ber of priests who flocked to London after the plague, 
and who gained a livelihood by saying masses for the 
souls of the dead. This is perfectly reasonable ; but I 
cannot discover that the poem echoes the tone of the 
city. Skeat is quite positive on this point. He says : 

" It is clear, both from very numerous allusions and 
fronn the whole tone of the poem, that the place which 
the poet knew best and most dehghted to describe was 
the city of London. It cannot be too strongly impressed 
upon the reader (especially as the point has often been 
overlooked) that one great merit of the poem consists in 
its exhibition of London life and London opinions ; and 
that to remember the London origin of at any rate the 



32 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

larger portion of the poem is the true key to the right 
understanding of it." 

This is looking at the poem from one point of view. 
If we look at it from the country side we shall find 
quite as much evidence that the author was at some 
time of his life familiar with rustic scenes. Here are 
some portions of the \\m!&i passus modernized, — 

" * Then,' said Parkin Ploughman, * by Saint Peter of Rome, 
I have a half acre to plough by the highway. 
Had I ploughed that half-acre and sowed it after, 
I would wend with you and the way teach.' 
' That were a long waiting,' quoth a lady in a chair; 
' What should we women work the whiles .'* ' 

* I pray you, for your profit,' quoth Piers to the ladies, 
'That some sew the sack for shedding of the wheat.' 

* Wives and widows wool and flax spinneth ; 
Conscience counselleth you cloth for to make 
For profit of the poor and pleasure of yourselves.' 

' I shall apparel me,' quoth Perkin, ' in pilgrim's wise, 
And wend with all those that live in truth.' 
He cast on him his clothes of all kind of crafts. 
His gaiters and his cuffs, as native wit him taught, 
And hung his hopper on his neck instead of a scrip; 
A bushel of bread-corn brought was therein. 

* For I will sow it myself, and then will I wend 
To pilgrimages, as palmers do, pardon to win. 

My plough-foot shall be my pike-staff, and pick in two the roots. 
And help my coulter to carve and cleanse the furrows. 
And all that help me to plough or else to weed 
Shall have leave, by our Lord, to go and glean after.* " 

This is quite enough to show that Langland must 
have been acquainted with life in country homes and in 
the fields. Not only is Piers the typical husbandman 
of his time, but his household were bred in puritanic 
ways. Their names will suggest a usage continued 
down into our colonial days, — 



WILLIAM LANGLAND, 33 

" Dame Work-when-time-is Piers' wife hight ; 
His daughter hight Do-right-so-or-thy-dame-shall-thee-beat; 
His son hight Suffer-thy-sovereign-have-their-will." 

These descriptive names are sufficiently picturesque, 
but the hfe they outhne is a hard-visaged phantom. 

Langland's acquaintance with literature was not 
limited to the sacred writers, although his allusions are 
too indefinite to help much in tracing the course of his 
studies. These lines from the thirteenth passus are a 
sample, — 

"Many proverbs I might have of many holy saints 
To testify for truth the tale that I show, 
And poets to prove it. Porphyry and Plato, 
Aristotle, Ovid, and eleven hundred, 
Tully, Ptolemy, — I cannot tell their names, — 
Prove patient poverty prince of all virtues.'' 

He was, moreover, well read in the civil and statute 
law, as well as in the ecclesiastical. The following 
lines are to the point : — 

"For may no churl a charter make nor his chattel sell 
^Yithout leave of the lord; no law would it grant." 

The work as a whole gives a favorable impression of 
the acquirements possible in the fourteenth century. 

The poem is wholly allegorical, as much so as 
Bunyan's " Pilgrim's Progress." All the "Vision" ap- 
pears in dreams. Some of its machinery is borro\ved 
from the earlier moralities and mysteries. In his first 
dream the poet finds himself in a wilderness, — the 
universe, — with power to survey a large part of it. 
On the east side he beholds a tower, the abode of 
Truth ; that is, of God. To the west is a deep dale, 
the abode of Death and of wicked spirits, and on the 
north is Lucifer, — 

3 



34 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

" He was an archangel of heaven, one of God's knights ; 
He and other with him that held^nought with Truth, 
Leaped out in loathly form for his false will ; 
He had lust to be like his Lord God Almighty. 
Lord ! why would he thus, that wretched Lucifer, 
[Rather] leap aloft, in the north side, 
[Than] sit on the sun's side, where the day roweth?" 

Those who exhibited the old moralities are said to 
have set Belial upon a scaffold on the north side of the 
open space where the spectators were gathered ; this 
was taken as a matter of fact (Isaiah xiv. 13). As show- 
ing the persistence of the most conventional and the 
most conservative of all the arts, we find in " Paradise 

Lost," book v., — 

" Which having passed. 
At length into the limits of the north 
They came, and Satan to his royal seat." 

Antiquated as is the manner and language of Lang- 
land on the whole, there are times when he seems just 
to have come in off the street. Speaking of faith with- 
out works, he says, — 

" For James the Gentile [judgeth] in his books 
That faith without works is feebler than nought, 
And dead as a door-nail." 

In his confession of the seven deadly sins, a vein of 
sarcasm shows rich wherever it comes to the surface : 

" * I am ever sorry,' said Envy, 
' I am but seldom other.' " 

Speaking of men of his own order, he says, — 

" They cannot out creep, 
So hard hath avarice hasped thera together." 

Holy Church points out a castle in his dream, — 

"That is the castle of Care ; whoso cometh therein 
May ban that he born was, in body and in soul ; 



WILLIAM LANG LAND. 35 

Therein woneth a wight, that Wrong is his name, 
Father of Falsehood founded it first of all ; 
Adam and Eve he egged to do ill." 

By giving Langland's lines a form sufficiently modern 
to suit the eye of the general reader, much mischief 
has been done the construction of his verse. It will 
be seen, however, that it is alliterative, like the old 
Saxon verse, and somewhat rhythmical, but wholly 
lacking rhyme. The lines describing the fall of the 
rebel angels require little change, — 

" In wonderwise holy writ telleth how they fallen ; 
Some in earth, some in air, some in hell deep, 
But Lucifer lowest lieth of them all ; 
For pride that him poked." 

There are few allusions to passing events in the 
poem, but enough to show that the age was not un- 
familiar with politics in the pulpit. There is a passage 
in the fourth passus which is highly characteristic of 
the poet's manner, — 

" CaitifF-like, thou, Conscience, counseledst the king to let 
In his enemy's hand this heritage of France. 
Uncunning is that conscience, a kingdom to sell, 
That is conquered through common help ; a kingdom or 

duchy 
May not be sold soothly, so many their part ask 
Of folk that fought therefor and followed the king's will." 

It has been supposed that Langland belonged to the 
Lollards, or Reformers^ of his day ; but he seems to 
me rather to have been of those who believed in re- 
form within the Church, and to have clung to her com- 
munion. Laboring to the end that he might work this 
internal reform, he was not likely to favor the popular 
uprising of 1381, and his silence with regard to the 
events of that time is sufficiently accounted for. His 



36 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

mention of the Lollards in connection with the " lollers" 
[idlers] at the beginning of the sixth passus, strikes 
me as an instance of his good-humored bantering, 
where he does not spare himself, that he may have a 
laugh at the expense of some of his zealous compan- 
ions. Before one has finished the book he will find a 
good many innuendoes lurking under somie word or 
phrase. The poet was certainly of the Puritan type, 
but I cannot make out that he was a Separatist. 



IV. 

JOHN BALL. 
1381. 

VERY slender would be the claims of John Ball to 
recognition as a man of letters if this claim 
rested solely upon the few fragments of his work which 
have come to our hands. Bare specimens even of his 
style and manner are to be gathered only from the 
out-of-the-way chronicles of his remote time. We can, 
however, find enough of his bold and honest speech 
that, taken in connection with the commentary of his 
Hfe and death, proves him to have been the earliest 
advocate of labor reform in England. Stephen Lang- 
ton, who lived nearly a century earlier than Ball, has 
been honored as a champion of freedom ; but it was 
rather ecclesiastical than political and civil freedom for 
which Langton contended. Again, Langton was a 
highly accomplished scholar, and all his life long he 
moved in the highest social circles. He did not, like 
Ball, identify himself in sympathy and interest with the 
humblest and feeblest ranks of a feudal community. 
Pretty nearly the same may be said of Wyclif, whose 
name is among the earliest and most conspicuous of 
the list of Enghsh Reformers. Wyclif aimed directly at 
the spiritual and intellectual liberty of the people. 
Ball, who followed close upon the Reformer's time, 
aimed just as directly at breaking the fetters of distinc- 



38 WELLS OF ENGLISLL. 

tions of caste and wealth and privilege and worth in 
which the masses of the English people were kept, by 
custom and usage, if not by statute and common law, 
in a condition of absolute bondage. We find almost 
as striking a contrast between Ball and Langland, the 
author of the " Vision of Piers Plowman," who was his 
contemporary, and with whose writings he was per- 
fectly familiar. Langland had genius and courage to 
inveigh against the priesthood and to vindicate Eng- 
lish rights against Romish invasion ; but he lacked the 
nerve — or was it the wisdom ? — to lay the issue be- 
tween labor, crushed under the burdens of taxation, of 
military and feudal service, of civil disability, and of 
social contempt, and that party of the second part 
theretofore claiming the right to lord it over the serfs 
as kings were divinely appointed over themselves. 

Ball had the courage and the ability to initiate a 
movement which finally brought the villein and the 
baron into the field, not as knight and retainer, but in 
hostile ranks. The Peasant War, as it is called, of 1381 
had its antecedent causes hke any other similar event. 
The chief promoter could not have been Wat Tyler, 
whose tragic death has made him the popular hero of 
the war. A hundred thousand laborers would not 
have appeared at Southwark from the eastern shires so 
suddenly as to overawe the English Government unless 
a great amount of preparatory work had been done. 
It was this work that Ball had been engaged at for 
more than twenty years. As a local preacher he had 
ministered to many communities in the east of Eng- 
land. Froissart speaks of him as " a mad priest of 
Kent ; " but at the time of the outbreak his curacy was 
at Colchester, in Essex, and his lodging in the prison 
at Maidstone. He had previously been settled at 



JOHN BALL. 39 

York, as his own letters show. These were important 
places in that day, and make it certain that Ball was a 
man of note. This estimate of his importance is sup- 
ported by the fact that after his trial and condemnation 
the Bishop of London got a stay of proceedings to try 
and convert him from his heresies. It makes plain also 
on what grounds Froissart thought him insane. 

In espousing the cause of the villeins against the 
barons in temporal affairs, Ball became the prototype 
of the Socialistic agitators of the present time. More 
than that, he gave the keynote to strains that are 
among the most pathetic in modern literature. Any 
one who cares to discover the capabilities of these 
themes to stir the soul will find their full power in 
"The Cry of the Children," by Mrs. Browning. It is 
not easy to realize the extent to which " the short and 
simple annals of the poor " have enriched our literature 
and our modern life. 

Wiiliam Morris's "■ Dream of John Ball " presents a 
striking picture of the man and his times, seen through 
a highly poetic atmosphere. The dreamer has no 
doubt " pondered all these things, and how men fight 
and lose the battle ; and the thing that they fought for 
comes about in spite of their defeat, and when it 
comes, turns out not to be what they meant, and other 
men have to fight for what they meant under another 
name." The poet is a kindred spirit with the old Re- 
former, and he strives, with all the energy of his sturdy 
and stubbornly obstinate individuality, to secure for 
mankind "the blessing of the Fellowship." 

The fullest account of Ball will be found in the 
second volume of Mr. C. E. Maurice's " English Popu- 
lar Leaders ; '* but a more ready source of information 
is Mr. Green's "Short History of the English People." 



40 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

Green seems to favor the opinion that Ball was the 
author, not only of the popular rhymes that went in his 
own name, but also those that went in the name of 
"Jack the Miller," "Jack the Carter," and "Jack 
Trewman." These have so much of form and senti- 
ment alike as to make the opinion that they are of 
a common origin perfectly reasonable. Upon this 
point the curious may consult the " General Preface '' 
to Mr. Skeat's edition of " The Vision of Piers the 
Plowman," where it is assumed that these are distinct 
personages. Green gives these specimens of the pecu- 
liar alliteration and rhyme of these compositions ; 
they resemble closely the work of Langland, and they 
continued in favor down to the time of John Skelton, 
in the sixteenth century : — 

" John Ball 
Greeteth you all, 
And doth for to understand 
He hath rung your bell. 
Now right and might, 
Will and skill, 
God speed every dele." 

" Help truth, and truth shall help you I 
Now reigneth pride in price, 
And covetise 
Is counted wise, 
And lechery withouten shame, 
And gluttony withouten blame. 
Envy reigneth with treason, 
And sloth is taken in great season. 
God do bote, 
For now is tyme ! " 

** Jack Miller asketh help to turn his mill aright. 
He hath grounden 
Small, small. 
The King's Son of Heaven 



JOHN BALL. 41 

He shall pay for all. 
Look tliy mill go aright 
With the four sailes, 
And the post stand 
With steadfastness, 
With right and with might. 
With skill and with will ; 
Let might help right, 
And skill go before will, 
And right before might, 
So go'eth our mill aright." 

** Jakke Trewman doth you to understonde 
That falseness and gyle have reigned so long, 
And trewth hath been set under a lock, 
And falseness and gyle reigneth in every flock. 
No man may come trewth to 
But if he sing Si dedero.'''' 

The Latin words with which Jack Trueman ends are 
supposed to be taken from some monkish hymn. The 
several passages contain allusions which are now ob- 
scure. We can see, however, that allegory abounds 
much as it does in Bunyan. The Englisli never out- 
grow a fondness for personification carried just far 
enough to present images in shadowy outline. How 
much like Poor Richards wisdom sounds the verse, 
" Help truth, and truth shall help you ! " The power 
of such speeches to lay hold upon the understanding 
and the conscience does not lie wholly in their pithy 
conciseness. They bring us to the subject as by a 
personal introduction. Ball understood this art of put- 
ting things, and his methods have not been improved 
upon. He is said to have reduced the political doc- 
trine to the couplet, — 

" When Adam delved and Eve span, 
W^ho was then the gentleman ? " 



42 WELLS OF ENGLLSH. 

This furnished the premises for his reasoning; 
any man's logic could draw the conclusions. What 
he insisted upon was the fact that all men were 
equal before God, and that sound reason as well 
as public policy required that they be equal before 
the laws. 

There is good ground for believing that Ball has 
been vilified and maligned in the history of his time. 
That the rising of the peasants were attended with so 
little disorder and crime as it was, and that the insur- 
gents never wavered in their loyalty to the king, proves 
that a strong moral force was exerted in behalf of law 
and order. If we look for this controlling power we 
cannot discover a more likely source than the counsel 
of a beloved and respected chaplain who had for years 
been the pastor of their homes and churches. Again, 
the fact of his identifying himself with an unsuccessful 
movement was ample reason for giving him the epithets 
of "mad priest," "strolling preacher," and others as 
little complimentary. In history, as in war, the cry is 
VcB victis I Successful iniquity engenders a sort of 
contagion of falsehood. As M. de Vericour puts the 
case, " there seems to be in the essence of humanity a 
base tendency to justify triumphant brute force, and to 
condemn without investigation whatever has submitted 
to defeat." 

The following letter of Ball's is reported as having 
been given in evidence against the writer of it at his 
trial. It is also regarded by some as proof that sundry 
other Johns mentioned are the same as have been 
quoted before, and are all different persons from Ball. 
But that he in this letter names himself John Schep, — 
that is, Shepherd, — is a circumstance not to be over- 
looked. 



JOHN BALL. 43 

"John Schep, sometyme seynt Marie prest of York, 
and nowe of Colchestre, greteth well Johan Nameles and 
Johan the Mullere and Johan Cartere, and biddeth hem 
that thei ware of gyle in borugh, and standeth togidder 
in Goddis name, and biddeth Piers Plowman go to his 
werke and chastise welle Hobbe the robber, and taketh 
with you Johan Trewman and all his felaws and no mo, 
and loke schape you to on heved and no mo." 

This letter is a good specimen of the English of 138 1. 
Surnames were by no means fixed at that time. They 
were being adopted among the lower classes usually 
from the occupation of the individual. There was no 
certainty, for instance, that John Carter belonged to a 
family that bore the name Carter, only that occupations 
were to some degree hereditary. Ball would no more 
hesitate to write under the name of Miller, Carter, or 
Trewman, if he appeared in such a character, than 
under the name of Shepherd. No hard and fast rules 
of interpretation can be applied in such cases. There 
is enough in the fi*agments of writing left and in the 
testimony of events to prov^e that there was at least one 
generous-hearted friend of the poor among the clergy 
of that day. 



V. 

HENRY BRADSHAW. 

1450-1513- 

F^ROM the end of the sixth century to the time 
when our Hterature began to take on its dis- 
tinctive form, near the close of the fourteenth century, 
the hfe of England was essentially a rehgious life. 
The former date is marked by the arrival of Augustine 
from Rome as a missionary of the Romish Church. 
The teachings of that Church dominated the life and 
thought of England through all that period. We could 
but infer as much, even if no record of the fact re- 
mained to us. The spirit of the Crusades was not the 
zeal born of recent conversion, it was the accumulated 
thought and desire of successive generations crystallized 
into a fixed purpose. 

But we are not left to conjecture alone on this 
point. There is a mass of documentary evidence as 
well as an abundance of tradition relating to this 
subject. The personal history of men and of women 
who were eminent for their Christian hves and virtues 
were the favorite subjects upon which the writers of 
the time were principally engaged. Monks were the 
chroniclers and journalists of that age. It is fair to 
assume that the quantity and the quality of their work 
were regulated according to the law of supply and 
demand. We may safely conclude that these worthy 



HENRY BR ADS HA IV. 45 

lives of worthy personages constituted the popular liter- 
ature of those centuries. 

The influence of these precursors of Chaucer^ Lang- 
land; and the other writers of prose and of verse who 
had a part in giving our hterature its modern form, is 
sufficiently plam in most Early English works. We 
discover it in the good-natured bantering of the " Can- 
terbury Tales " and in the severe strictures of the 
" Creed " and the '' Vision of Piers Plowman." Some 
fragments of that early legendary literature have lived 
on to the present in the romance of Scott and in the 
ballads of the poets. 

To take up those early Lives of the Saints in their 
original form would be a task neither easy nor edify- 
ing. They were written in the Latinity of the Church 
and of the period. They are filled with triviahties 
amounting to little more than the gossip of cloister and 
refectory. The writers betray a sentiment nearly akin 
to hero-worship. Each tries to give his subject all the 
graces of a saintly life and character. The rivalry 
among diiferent religious orders must be taken into 
account to explain what readers of the present day can 
regard only as exaggerated praise. The local interest 
which attaches to these patrons and patronesses of 
convents, abbeys, and towns is in many instances by 
no means the least interesting feature of these spiritual 
biographies. 

We are happily saved the time and the trouble of 
reading in Latin these records of early English grace 
and piety. Sufficient of their number have been put 
into our own tongue to show us what is their quality. 
Some time in the last years of the fifteenth century 
and the first years of the sixteenth Henry Bradshaw, 
himself a monk, put into English verse the legendary 



46 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

Story of Saint Werburge of Chester. Although Brad- 
shaw's English of very nearly four hundred years ago 
gives the reader an impression of quaintness and re- 
moteness, we must bear in mind that his story goes 
back to a time nearly seven hundred years earlier. So 
far, therefore, as incident or remark may reveal any- 
thing of hfe, it is of life in the early morning of Eng- 
land's history. 

The Latin life — or "passionary," as it was called — 
gave Bradshaw but the merest oudine of his poetical 
biography. He modestly calls himself only a trans- 
lator. His reference to the original work is of 
interest, — 

" For as declareth the true passionary, — 
A book wherein her holy life written is ; 
Which book remaineth in Chester monastery, — 
I purpose, by help of Jesu, king of bliss, 
In no wise to rehearse any sentence amiss, 
But follow the legend and true history 
After an humble style, and from it little vary " 

This Stanza may be taken as a specimen of the whole 
work so far as form is concerned. It is only at rare 
intervals that an eighth line is added. We know that 
the measure was popular at the time, for it was used 
both by Chaucer and by Lydgate. The long lines 
suited the dignity of the subject. The reader will 
admit that it becomes a little tiresome when it is con- 
tinued through more than eight hundred stanzas. It 
may be well to remark here at the outset that in read- 
ing this verse the final syllable is to be heavily toned. 

The student of our literature will be gratified to find 
that this studious recluse, writing the life of a holy 
personage, claimed companionship with the poets of 
his time in the fraternity of letters. Sending his 



HENRY BRADSHAW. 47 

" little book " into the world, he speeds it with this 
gracious recognition of his fellow-poets, — 

" To all ancient poets, little book, submit thee, 
Whilom flowering in eloquence facundious, 
And to all other which present now be, — 
First to Master Chaucer and Lydgate sententious ; 
Also to pregnant Barkley, now being religious ; 
To inventive Skelton and poet laureate ; 
Pray them all of pardon both early and late." 

Bradshaw pays a scarcely less direct compliment to 
his " maister Chaucer " in the opening stanza of his 
prologue, — 

" When Phoebus has run his course in Sagittari, 
And Capricorn entered, a retrogiate, 
Amidst December the air cold and frosty, 
And pale Lucina the earth did illuminate, 
I rose up shortly from my cubicle preparate 
About midnight, and cast in mine intent 
How I might spend the time convenient." 

Comparing this with the first lines of the Prologue to 
the "Canterbury Tales," we discover that in a very 
direct sense Chaucer was indeed the master. 

After the manner of early historians, the poet en- 
larges upon the condition of his country at the time of 
which he writes, — 

" In England there ruled seven kings, doubtless, 
Whose names we purpose to show with license, 
But principally of the kingdom of Mercians." 

This old Mercian kingdom^ between the Thames and 
the Humber, was the one to which Saint Werburge 
belonged. Among so many kingdoms royalty must 
have been abundant and cheap. We can easily give 
belief to the statement that this lady was 

" Descended by ancestry and title famous 
Of four mighty kings noble and victorious." 



48 WELLS OF ENGLISIL 

This Werburge must not be confounded with another 
royal lady of the same name and of about the same 
time, who joined with her husband Alfred and their 
daughter Alhdryd in signing a deed of gift to Canter- 
bury Cathedral of what is known as the " Codex 
Aureus," the " Golden Book." This book is a copy of 
the four gospels written in letters of gold on one hun- 
dred and ninety leaveS; alternately of white and a 
delicate violet hue. The deed of gift is written in the 
top and bottom margins of the last leaf. This book is 
now in the Royal Library of Sweden. No date is 
given to the deed, but it is not at all unlikely that the 
estimable lady who signed it was named after the saint 
whom Bradshaw celebrated. 

There is introduced into this long poem somewhat 
of dramatic form. A good example of this is found in 
that portion where the author tells how Werburge gave 
spiritual instruction to her sisters of the abbey. There 
is in this part, as there is elsewhere, implied dialogue. 
When the abbess comes to speak of her approaching 
death, she alludes to the universal hope of immor- 
tality, in this stanza, — 

" The sweet bird, closed in a cage a long season, 
Gladly entendeth to fly at liberty : 
The prisoner, fettered and cast in deep dungeon, 
Ever supposes to be rid from captivity ; 
The soul of mankind most digne of duty, 
Naturally desireth, proved by reason, 
To be delivered from bodily prison." 

It is in keeping with the rules of dramatic composition 
that this plaintive strain be follovyed by a glad burst of 
joyful feeling. Precisely this result is brought about 
by the skill of the author. The gloom which the an- 
ticipation of death was calculated to inspire is imme- 



HENR V BRADSHA W. 49 

diately dispelled by the ecstasy with which the 
sacrament is received. This passage follows as a lyric 
chorus follows the culmination of horror in a Greek 
tragedy : — 

" Welcome, my Lord, welcome my King ; 
Welcome, my Sovereign and Saviour ; 
Welcome, my Comfort and Joy everlasting, 
My Trust, my Treasure, my Help and Succor ; 
Welcome, my Maker and my Redemptor j 
The Son of God, most in majesty, 
Without beginning and endless shall be." 

From what has already been given, the reader will 
have found the verse built somewhat roughly and rug- 
gedly. The rhymes are rarely full rhymes, but are 
limited to the final syllable. This syllable was no 
doubt read as a toned syllable. We find such rliymes 
as " frosty, sagittari ; " " marter (martN'r), father ; " 
"father, syster ; " " syster, daughter;" and so on. 
Final ed was then regularly sounded, as it continues to 
be in "blessed "and a few other words. The sound 
of long i had not then been developed, as is shown by 
the rhyming of " shrine " and " virgine," " tyme " and 
" ruyne," etc. Attending to such matters as these, the 
reader of Bradshavv will find his verse running much 
more smoothly than otherwise. Cadence is almost en- 
tirely lacking. The variety of forms under which some 
words appear is due to the many dialects then prevailing 
in central England. 

There are elements in the composition which were 
popular in Bradshaw's day, but which are apt to be 
passed over without notice by the modern reader. 
Alliteration is a matter of course. It is not always the 
case that instances of this appear in the first syllables 
of words ; they are to be looked for in such combi- 

4 



50 



WELLS OF ENGLISH. 



nations as '^ fortune unfriendly," " conserve and save," 
" vertue to avaunce." Popular phrases and proverbs, 
used with a freedom equal to that which marks the 
style of Chaucer, must have recommended the poem 
to the favor of the masses. Some of the comparisons 
are rather strong than elegant. Here is a homely 
one, redolent of its native English soil. The poet says 
of the false Werbode that when the devil entered into 
him, — 

" He rored and yelled lyke a wylde bull." 

There is plenty of internal evidence like this going 
to show that Bradshaw wrote for the common people 
of his day. The poem must have been well suited to 
their habit of thought, as it was suited to their habit 
of speech. The purpose of the author is obvious 
throughout. We cannot doubt the candor or the 
confidence with which he sent the volume from his 
hands. 

*' Go forth, little book, Jesu be thy speed, 
i\nd save thee alway from misreportins:, 
Which art compiled for no clerk indeed, 
But for merchant men having little learning, 
And that rude people thereby may have knowing 
Of this holy virgin and redolent rose. 
Which hath been kept full long time in close." 

Everywhere in his poem does Bradshaw appear the 
genial monk, — not, however, wholly unacquainted with 
the affairs of the world. And yet he was apparently 
entirely unconscious that anything like doubt or scep- 
ticism existed. He tells the miracle of Saint Chad, — 
that the vestments of the good saint hung suspended 
on a sunbeam while he who had doffed them was 
engaged in prayer, — just as though everybody must 



HEXR V BR ADS HA JK 5 I 

needs believe it as a matter of course. There is not 
in his work a single hint of the deep unrest which at 
that time disturbed the soul of England. After-events 
consigned to oblivion the Lives of the Saints, even 
Bradshaw's Life of Saint Werburge. 



VI. 

JOHN SKELTON. 

1460-1529. 

SKELTON is connected, not only in time, but in 
the whole scope of his Hterary purpose and 
accomplishment, with the reign of Henry VIII. He 
aspired to be court poet to that sovereign, and he 
regularly signed himself poet laureate. Although this 
office is not known to have become perpetual until the 
time of Charles I., when Ben Jonson was appointed, — 
upon the suggestion, it is said, of the poet himself, — 
yet there were instances of poets receiving presents 
from the king, even if they were not pensioned, before 
the time of Skelton. However the facts in this particular 
case may have been, we must now content ourselves 
with the reflection that if Henry VHI. desired to have 
a poet laureate, Skelton was just about the sort of man 
for him to bestow the bays upon. 

Skelton was educated for the Church, and for a time 
he was engaged in the duties of the priesthood. From 
this position he was removed. Whatever may have been 
the occasion of this removal, his writings show him to 
have been capable of almost any and every species of 
unworthiness of the sacred office. It is likely that the 
loss of his place led him into literature ; at any rate, 
his attacks upon Cardinal Wolsey furnished the motive 
and the avowed purpose of most of his poems. These 
are naturally personal in a most pointed manner. Their 



yOHN SKELTON. 53 

author occupies a sort of middle ground, in temper as 
well as in time, between the incensed but dignified 
Langland and the intemperately abusive Swift, Dean of 
St. Patrick's. 

The character of Wolsey, as it has been described 
for us, abounds in contradictions. Shining virtues are 
offset by shameful vices. Any account of the man 
must be made up of antitheses. His fortunes, too, 
offer the same striking contrasts. A youth of assiduous 
study and effort was followed by a manhood of con- 
spicuous influence in the Church and at court, and this 
in turn was succeeded by utter ruin and despair. It is 
not to be forgotten, however, that this character and 
record have been given to the cardinal by his enemies, 
and they took great pains to have poetic justice done 
the man. It ought to weigh much in his favor that he 
never stooped to deny the charges brought against 
him. We can easily imagine that Shakspeare does 
only justice to the character of Wolsey when he repre- 
sents him as saying to Surrey, — 

" How much methinks I could despise this man, 
But that I am bound in charity against it ! " 

He could honestly, no doubt, have said this before a 
host of scurrilous writers, and to Skelton chief among 
them. 

Shakspeare was in a position to estimate the car- 
dinal at his true worth. The character which he has 
given may be taken as just. 

" He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one ; . . . 
And though he were unsatisfied in getting 
(Which was a sin), yet in bestowing, madam, 
He was most princely. Ever witness for him 
Those twins of learning that he raised in you, 
Ipswich and Oxford." 



54 



WELLS OF ENGLISH. 



The mention of Ipswich in this connection reminds 
us of Wolsey's scheme for founding a college there. 
The town was his birthplace. His princely mind con- 
ceived the idea of founding there a monument to his 
greatness. To this end he obtained from the pope the 
dissolution of about thirty religious houses, among 
them the monastery of Ipswich. Their wealth was to 
be appropriated to the founding of a great institution 
of learning. One building was erected in 1528, — two 
years before the cardinal's death. Of this it is said 
that only one brick gateway is left in ruins on the 
side towards the river. Like all the rest of Wolsey's 
lifework, this scheme seems to have proved a failure ; 
but to one who is looking for probable causes for his- 
torical events, this easy " appropriation " of Church 
funds appears to have suggested to Henry VIII. the 
policy of dissolving all the religious houses throughout 
the realm and '^ appropriating " their revenues to uses 
of the State. The act was one that gained Wolsey 
enemies and Skelton readers. 

The poet adopted for his railing a species of verse 
which has ever since been known by his name. No 
one could hope to avoid doggerel while using such a 
measure. The opening of " Colin Clout " affords a 
good specimen of the verse. This is Skelton's earliest 
tirade against the powers that had removed him from 
his living, and it is more general than subsequent 
attacks. 

" What can it avail 

To drive forth a snail, 

Or to make a sail 

Of a herring's tail ; 

To rhyme or to rail, 

To write or to invite, 

Either for delight 

Or else for despite ; 



JOHN SKELTON. 55 

Or books to compile 
Of divers manner style, 
Vice to revile 
And sin to exile; 
To teach or to preach, 
As reason will reach ? " 

And so on for more than twelve hundred lines. It 
required the genius of Taylor, the v\^ater-poet, to show 
all the capacity for nonsense which this kind of verse 
could develop. In the hands of Skelton this jingling 
of rhyme sometimes showed unusual energy of thought. 
These opening lines indicate his purpose of lashing the 
Church authorities. We know, from its frequent occur- 
rence in the literature of the time, that the whipping a 
snail was a proverbial expression for a thankless and 
unprofitable labor ; and from the fact that Skelton had 
been settled at Norwich, we easily conclude that the 
making a sail of a herring's tail was a local proverb 
that would take direct hold of the thought of those 
East-shore fishermen. 

There is little in this poem, or indeed in any of 
Skelton's writings, relating to the Reformation. The 
quarrel in which he is engaged is that going on be- 
tween the laity and the clergy. A few lines near the 
middle of the piece give a catalogue of prevailing 
schisms and an idea of the contempt in which some of 
them were held, — 

" And some have a smack 
Of Luther's sack, 
And a burning spark 
Of Luther's work, 
And are somewhat suspect 
In Luther's sect ; 
And some of them bark, 
Clatter, and carp 



56 WELLS OF ENGLLSH. 

Of that heresy art 

Called Wickliffista, 

The devilish dogmatista ; 

And some be Russians, 

And some be Arians, 

And some be Pelagians, 

And make much variance 

Between the clergy 

And the temporality, — 

How the Church hath too mickel, 

And they have too little." 

The matters in dispute at that time related chiefly 
to the revenues, privileges, and preferments of the 
Church. When Henry VIII. put an end to all this 
contention by promptly " appropriating " all worldly 
possessions of religious houses, then points of doctrine 
came under discussion as they had never been dis- 
cussed before. 

Mild as Skelton was in this book, he complains near 
the end that he could not have it printed because of 
the offence it had given. Certainly the writer's spirit 
was sufficiently impartial, and his expression candid 
enough, if we may take some of his closing lines as in 

earnest, — 

" Run God, run devil, 
Run who may run best, 
And let take all the rest ! 
We set not a nutshell 
The way to heaven or to hell." 

Having been refused license to print, the poet natu- 
rally used greater license of speech in those later effu- 
sions, which he had printed as broadsides and scattered 
among the" people. His '•' Why come ye not to 
Court?" is much after the manner of "Colin Clout." 
It deals with the current events, and may be taken as 
a running commentary upon the policy of the court, 



JOHN SKELTON. 57 

particularly in regard to ecclesiastical matters. It 
appears to have been composed in parts from time to 
time, and these fragments seem to have been loosely 
thrown together into a poem of the same general char- 
acter throughout The poem belongs historically to 
1522-23. Wolsey was at that time archbishop of 
York, cardinal and lord chancellor of England. His 
enemies were assailing him on every side, and prob- 
ably none of their shafts were tipped with a deadlier 
poison than the rude wit of Skelton. No matter what 
the opening of a paragraph may seem to aim at, it is 
sure to have a range wide enough to take in the un- 
popular primate. This passage shows how easily the 
poet loses scent of all other game, — 

" Twit, Andrew, twit, Scot, 
Gae hame, gae scour thy pot, 
For we have spent our shot : 
We shall have a tot quot 
From the pope of Rome 
To weave all in one loom, 
A web of linsey-woolsey, 
Optis male diilce."" 

The pun on the cardinal's name in the line next to 
the last is plain enough, and considering the character 
of the piece as a whole, such wit is not to be con- 
demned. If we care to behold the undissembled 
depravity of Skelton in the way of punning, we have 
only to turn to some Latin lines of his which are with 
propriety called " virulent." This piece of ranting 
begins with — 

" Proh dolor, ecce, maris lupus, et nequissimus ursus ! " 

and goes on speaking of " the butcher's calf," and 
takes ten Hnes to make it clear that the " maris lupus " 
is none other than Wolsey. And then we discover 



58 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

that "maris lupus" (sea-wolf) is wolf-of-the-sea ; /. e., 
Wolsey. 

The epithet " butcher's calf " is used with reference 
to Wolsey's father, who is reported to have been a 
butcher. Whoever is curious in regard to the family 
history of the great chancellor will find much of inter- 
est in a recent publication entitled, " In and about 
Ancient Ipswich." 

Turning back to " Why come ye not to Court," 
we hit upon a spirited account of the manner in which 
Wolsey bore himself in the Star Chamber. The truth 
in it is its fidelity to the popular idea of the way in 
which the business of that court was carried on. A 
few lines will show the quality of the work, — 

" He is set so high 
In his hierarchy 
Of frantic frenzy 
And foolish fancy 
That in the Chamber of Stars 
All matters there he mars j 
Clapping his rod on the board, 
No man dare speak a word, 
For he hath all the saying, 
Without any renaying." 

The specimens given are sufficient to show the rela- 
tion of Skelton's poetry to the history of his own time. 
No reader of this poet will need to be cautioned 
against taking him as an unbiassed authority in regard 
to any matter of Church or State ; his recklessness is 
apparent in every line. Enough, also, has been given 
of the peculiar Skeltonian verse. It can safely be said 
of this that it does not admit of elevation in sentiment 
or style. It has in itself the elements of corruption, 
and will debase any writer who adopts it, and will 
debase his theme as well. 



JOHN skelton: 59 

But Skelton was capable of better work than his 
tirades against Wolsey. His •' Philip Sparrow " proves 
this, and there are indications in his moral dramatic 
piece, " Magnificence," of a nobler if not richer vein. 
But it is not likely that if he had written worthily of his 
better genius, he would have been read by so many in 
his own day, or would have furnished later generations 
material of greater value. All his work is overloaded 
with the cumbrous learning of the age, and his " Mag- 
nificence," which is a connecting link between the 
moralities of early times and the modern play, shows 
learning of a peculiar kind. Not only in the names of 
some of the characters, " Magnificence," " Measure," 
etc., but in the sentiments which these express, are we 
reminded of the Greek philosophic doctrine of " the 
mean." The piece is supposed to have been written 
about 15 15. Erasmus was teaching Greek at Cam- 
bridge from 15 10 to 15 14. The poet was a Cambridge 
man, and his residence at Norwich would be likely to 
keep him informed of w^hat was done at the university. 
" Measure " was Plato's term for which Aristotle sub- 
stituted "the mean." These are grounds for taking 
this drama as the earliest fruit of Greek philosophy in 
England. If we follow out this clew, it leads to the 
conclusion that Plato's doctrines were expounded at 
Cambridge earlier than those of i\ristotle. All the 
literature of that period seems to support the same 
view. 



VII. 

WILLIAM DUNBAR. 

1460?-! 529? 

THERE were three hundred years between the 
time of Dunbar and that of Burns. Consider- 
ing this length of time, we find great similarity between 
the poets and their works. This likeness is all the 
more striking if we take into account the great proba- 
bility — almost the certainty, in fact — that Burns 
never read a line of his predecessor's poetry, — never 
even heard of his name. The strange identities may 
be accounted for upon various grounds. We may sup- 
pose that the example of Dunbar lived on in the work 
of succeeding poets, so that his thought and his form 
of expression were repeated again and again until they 
were taken into the soul and the poetic hfe of Burns. 
Another theory, quite as reasonable, is this, — that life, 
under all conditions, remains essentially the same in 
every age, and that the poets who interpret it to us 
will naturally pitch their notes upon one and the same 
key. 

Neither the time of Dunbar's birth nor that of his 
death can be learned with certainty. It will serve 
every purpose of the reader to know that his life must 
have been comprised within the dates 1450 and 1530. 
His active life fell in the time of James IV. of Scotland. 



WILLIAM DUNBAR. 6 1 

This is a period of great interest in our literature. It 
belongs to the era of French influence, particularly in 
Scotland. The two governments were closely allied at 
that time. It was just before Italian influence began 
to be felt in Eagland. Chaucer, Lydgate, and Gower 
were admired in the North, where the literature was 
essentially English. The court at Edinburgh was a 
powerful stimulus to the genius of the nation. The 
works of Dunbar not only illustrate the literature of the 
time, but they show how prolific the age was in poetry. 
His "Lament for the Makars " — that is, for the poets 
— introduces us to several writers of his time, whom 
we know only from this kindly mention by the poet. 
When we see how rare copies of Dunbar were in Scot- 
land for a hundred years or more, we tremble at the 
risk these minor writers ran of being altogether for- 
gotten long ago. 

The names of poets whom Dunbar says death " has 
ta'en out of this countrie " are worthy of notice here, 
for they form a more notable list than will be found for 
a long time afterwards. Of those who belonged to his 
own generation, and who were likely to be among his 
acquaintances, were — '' Maister John Clerk and James 
Afflek," whom he calls writers of ballads and " trage- 
die," that is, any moral or descriptive poem ; Hol- 
land, who wrote an allegorical poem called " The Buke 
or the Howlat ; " and John Barbour, author of the 
"Acts of Robert the Bruce." Of "Sir Mungo Lock- 
hart of the Lee " nothing authentic remains. Dunbar 
tells us that " Clerk of Tranent " " made the Awnteris 
of Gawane ; " that is, Adventures of Gawin. Sir Gil- 
bert Hay translated the French metrical romance of 
" Alexander the Great," consisting of twenty thousand 
lines. Blind Harry wrote "The Life and Acts of Sir 



62 WELLS OF ENGLLSri. 

William Wallace." Sandy Traill's work has all disap- 
peared. Of Patrik Johnstoun we know with certainty 
only that he " and his fallow is " " playt a play to the 
king in Lythgu " (Lithgow) in 1489. Merseir is un- 
known but for the poet's mention of him as short and 
quick of sentence ; and in regard to Roull of Aber- 
deen, and gentle Roull of Corstorphine, we have to 
take his word for it that " Two better fallows did no 
man see." The work of Robert Henryson has lasted 
and will last ; not so has the work of Sir John the 
Ross. '' Gude, gentle Stobo," "of whom all wichtis 
has pitie," claims of us now only the tenderness which 
Dunbar's mention of his friend suggests. Quintine 
Schaw wrote *' Advyce to a Courtier." Last of all, the 
poet names '' Gude Maister Walter Kennedy," then 
at the point of death. It was with this Kennedy 
that Dunbar had had a tilt, called " The Flyting." 
The performance was a good specimen of literary 
blackguardism, — if such a thing can be called 
good. 

The poet makes no mention of Gawin Douglas, 
because the latter was living at the time of printing in 
1508 ; but that he should ignore his eminent contem- 
porary, as he does in saying of Death, " he has all my 
brether ta'en," has been construed into evidence that 
there was some grudge on his part, 01 a feeling of 
jealousy at least. Such a construction is purely gratui- 
tous. The poet was writing with no thought of fur- 
nishing us with literary history or gossip. 

Dunbar's manner was lively, and w^here occasion 
offered, it was even gay. How sensitive he was to 
external influences we learn from his " Meditation in 
Winter." The very first verse lets us into the secret of 
his moods. 



WILLIAM DUNBAR. 63 

" Into these dark and drumly days, 
When sable all the heaven arrays 
With mystic vapors, clouds, and skies, 
Nature all courage me denies 
Of songs, of ballads, and of plays." 

We know the man, as we know Burns, from what he 
tells us of himself in artless simplicity. 

Even where he indulges in banter and humor, it is 
easy enough to read the care that was preying upon 
his heart, for he was a poor man all his life, and with 
all his talent and learning was dependent upon a poor 
and unstable court. That his temper and his morality 
were of the most cheerful kind was what he had above 
all to be thankful for. This most melancholy of his 
poems he closes with — 

" Come, lustie simmer, with thy flowers, 
That I may live in disport." 

Dunbar was richly gifted in fancy. Like Burns, he 
was fond of presenting his view of the world under the 
guise of a vision or a dream. A good example of this 
treatment is " The Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins." 
The entertainment was supposed to be held on Fast- 
em's Eve, which used to be a festival of great jollity. 
The opening lines will give an idea of the spirit of the 
piece. It lacks httle of the rollicking revels in " Tam 
o' Shanter." 

" Of Februar the fifteen nicht, 
Full lang before the dayis licht, 

I lay in till a trance ; 
And then I saw baith Heaven and Hell, — 
Methought araangis the fiends fell, 

Mahoun made cry ane Dance 
Of shrewis that were never shriven, 
Against the feast of Fastern's even 

To make their observance. 



64 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

The poet's fondness for this figure gives us a passage 
of rare beauty in " The Golden Targe." 

** What through the merry foulis harmony 
And through the river's soun' that ran me by, 
On Flora's mantle I sleepit as I lay, 
When soon in till my dreamis fantasy 
I saw approach against the orient sky 
A sail as white as blossom upon spray, 
With mast of gold bright as the star of day, 
Which tendit to the land full lustily, 
As falcon swift, desirous of her prey." 

While we are upon this " Golden Targe," it is more 
than worth our while to turn to the author's description 
of a May morning, when, — 

*' Ere Phoebus was in purple cape revest, 
Up rose the lark, the heaven's minstrel fine. 
In May, in till a morrow mirthfullest. 

" Full angel like these birdis sang their hours [orisons] 
Within their curtains green, into their bowers 

Apparelled white and red with blossoms sweet ; 
Enamelled was the field with all colors ; 
The pearly droppis shook in silver showers, 

While all in balm did branch and leavis fleet. 

To part fra Phoebus did Aurora greet [weep] ; 
Her crystal tears I saw hing on the flowers, 

Which he for love all drank up with his heat." 

Only Chaucer had ever seen such a morning as this 
before in England, and his description lacks somewhat 
of the passion which thrills in Dunbar's. Rarely do 
such visions appear to the eyes of men, but a glimpse 
of a more stately coming is to be caught where the 
friend of Hamlet calls out, — 

** But look ! the morn, in russet mantle clad, 
^ Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill." 



WILLIAM DUNBAR. 65 

The most striking mannerism of Dunbar's is the use 
of the refrain, which is made to bear all the burden of 
the song. This necessarily limits the performance to 
a few stanzas, or it becomes wearisome from its tame- 
ness. The refrain was quite the fashion in the poet's 
day, as we see by reference to Henryson and others 
of his contemporaries. 

Dunbar furnishes some of the earhest, and at the 
same time some of the best, specimens of macaronic 
poetry in our language. It is true that it differs from 
the standard article in this, that the Latin is correct, 
instead of being made up of " vernacular words with 
Latin terminations," as the rules for this composition 
direct. A specimen from " The Testament of Mr. 
Andro Kennedy " will show what this writing was like. 
The testator gives directions for his burial. 

*' I will na priestis for me sing 

Dies ilia, Dies irce; 
Na yet na bellis for me ring 

Sicut semper solet fieri; 
But a bagpipe to play a spring, 

Et unum ailwisp ante me ; 
Instead of banners, for to bring 

Quatuor lageitas servisice,'^ 

The poem of "The Thistle and the Rose," written 
for the occasion of the marriage of James IV. and the 
Princess Margaret of England, is one of Dunbar's 
best-known performances. It suited the poet's fancy 
to represent the royal parties to this marriage under 
the national emblems of their countries. As in other 
instances, he here threw the allegory into the form of 
vision, and all Nature, animate and inanimate, graced 
with its presence the bridal of his king and queen. 
This plan enabled the poet to convey his compliments 
5 



66 WELLS OF ENGLISH-. 

indirectly, and to make them the more acceptable as 
they were the more delicate. That Dunbar was re- 
warded for this writing with the bounty of the crown, 
marks him as poet laureate of Scotland in the earliest 
years of its literary history. 



VIII. 

ROBERT HENPvYSON. 

150S. 

OUR lyric poetry owes its great variety of meas- 
ures to the early Cambrian and Gaelic songs 
which were popular in England before the Roman 
occupation of the island. These songs and the airs 
to which they were sung survived among the people 
of Wales and of the Highlands of Scotland until long 
after the Conquest. It was from the North that in the 
fifteenth century song and ballad writing and pastoral 
verse came into our literature. The Saxon poetry of 
the South of England, succeeded by the French of the 
Conquest, had acquired little freedom of movement in 
the time of Chaucer and Gower. The measures were 
as few as were the subjects introduced into verse. The 
handling was, in general, tame and monotonous. The 
poets were looking towards the South, — to French and 
Italian models. They give us hints that they were not 
unacquainted with the native products of the soil, but 
they withstood the bewitching influence of these. It 
was in the latter half of the fifteenth century that song 
came in with a flood of melody. The movement was 
from Scotland, and for its earliest impulse we are most 
of all indebted to a poor Scotch schoolmaster, Robert 
Henryson. 



68 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

The little to be learned of this poet is that he was 
educated at Glasgow, that he spent his life as a notary 
and schoolmaster at Dunfermline, and was dead in 
1508. The manner in which the date of his death is 
always mentioned leads us to suspect that it is drawn 
as an inference from some literary record. There can 
be little doubt that the statement is tracked to its origi- 
nal source in a stanza of the " Lament of the Makars" 
written not later than 1508 by Wilham Dunbar, a 
Scotch poet who is far better known. The " makars " 
(makers) of this piece are poets, — the two words be- 
ing synonyms. There is mention here of many poets 
of Dunbar's generation of whom we have knowledge 
from no other source. Each of the twenty-five stanzas 
ends with the refrain in Latin — 

" Timor mortis conturbat me." 
(The fear of death disquiets me) 

Such a refrain leads the author to speak only of 
those poets of his acquaintance who have died, or are 
in equal danger with himself. The allusion to Henry- 
son is in this stanza, — 

" In Dunfermline he has ta'en Broun, 
With Maister Robert Henrysoun ; 
Sir John the Ross embraced has he : 
Timor mortis conturbat me." 

The date of this poem seems to have determined 
the year before which Henryson died, — excellent au- 
thority, and deserving to be quoted. It is not alto- 
gether improbable, moreover, that some writer, glean- 
ing for material in a field exceptionally lean, has read 
into the Hne devoted to Henryson the word "school" 
before " maister," and thus settled for all time the 
question of the old bard's employment. The conclu- 



! ROBERT HENRYS ON. 69 

sion might be every way reasonable, and not at all 
derogatory to the poet in his day or in ours, but yet 
wholly without warrant. Only a few lines farther on 
there is mention of — 

" Good Maister Walter Kennedy ; " 

but there is little likelihood that Walter Kennedy was 
ever a schoolmaster. 

The lugubrious refrain of these verses of Dunbar is 
in itself evidence of indebtedness to Henryson on the 
part of English poetry. This pecuhar feature of verse 
appeared at an earher day, as in Chaucer's "Good 
Counsel ; " but it was our poet of the fifteenth century 
who first made it re-echo the sentiment of the lines 
which went before it. He had the skill to introduce 
the refrain so that it bore the burden of the thought 
throughout. His poem entitled "The Abbey Walk" 
will illustrate well this writer's admirable technique. I 
quote the first stanza, — 

" Alone as I went up and down 

In an abbey was fair to see, 
Thinking what consolation 

Was best under adversitie, 

By chance I cast aside mine ee, 
And saw this written upon a wall : 

' Of what estate, Man, that thou be, 
Obey, and thank thy God for all.' " 

The successive stanzas of the poem all end with this 
last line, — 

" Obey, and thank thy God for all," 

as a refrain. When we consider how important a part 
the refrain has had in determining the forms of lyric 
poetry, we cannot too highly value such work as this 
at such a time. 



70 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

But the one thing for which "Maister Henrysoun" 
has hitherto received credit is the introduction of the 
pastoral into English poetry. Considering the success 
with which this variety of literature was cultivated at a 
later day by such poets as Greene and Marlowe, we 
shall hold it no small praise to have been the first to 
write pastoral verse of merit sufficient to withstand the 
rivalry of the Elizabethan era, and to please even the 
taste of the present, which is little tolerant of pastorals. 
This oldest dialogue between shepherd and shepherd- 
ess upon the trite topic of love, charms with its natural- 
ness and simplicity. In these qualities it has not been 
excelled. The piece takes its title from the names of 
the two whose conversation is reported, *' Robin and 
Makyn." It may be of service to remark that 
" Makyn," the name of the fair shepherdess, is from 
Mary and the diminutive ending ''kin," so that we may 
read the title in modern English as " Robert and Little 
Mary." The two are tending neighboring flocks of 
sheep upon the Scottish hillsides. Makyn quite inno- 
cently begins the talk on love with the proposal to 
teach her clownish companion the A B C of that pas- 
sion. She proceeds so far as these elements, — 

"Be hend, courtess, and fair of feir, 
Wise, hardy, and free." 

(Be gentle, courteous, fair of soul ; 
Be wise, be bold, be free.) 

The loutish Robin declares that he knows nothing 
of love, and intimates that he finds occupation for his 
time and thoughts in the care of his sheep. The 
maiden soon passes to entreaty for the love of her 
companion in language which confesses the depth and 
the sincerity of her feelings. This exposes her to the 



ROBERT HENRYSON. 71 

scorn of the swain, who listens impatiently. He tells 
her at last that he has wasted a good deal of time, and 
he brings the interview to an end abruptly with this 
remark, — 

" Makyn, some other man beguile, 
For homeward I will fare." 

Thereupon he goes on his way home at evening, — 

" As light as leaf of tree," 

counting his gain and proud of his diligence. 

A little time is now supposed to have elapsed, — 
time enough for Makyn to have recovered from the 
discomfiture of her first attempt to teach the art of 
love, when her flock is again feeding alongside the 
flock of Robin. This time it is the swain who takes a 
fancy to have the neglected lesson repeated. He now 
has ample time for it ; he has a decided inclination 
for it, and he descends to entreaty that the fair shep- 
erdess will favor him with further talk on love. But 
the tables are turned. Makyn has no leisure for idle 
talk and no care for the distress of her lover. For his 
imploring prayer she has the cool reply, — 

" As thou hast done, so shall I say, 
' Mourn on ; ' I think to mend." 

There is a good deal of this plain talk, for it is as difli- 
cult a task to make Robin understand that his love is 
now a thing of no account at all, as it v^^as in the former 
instance to get him to comprehend what love is. It is 
Makyn that goes home this time singing and light of 
heart. There is nothing finer or more natural in 
Theocritus than this idyllic passage of humble hfe. It 
can scarcely be said that in purity of tone and truth- 



72 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

fulness of sentiment this oldest pastoral in English 
poetry has been improved upon by the refinements of 
later poets. In the simpHcity of its conception and in 
vivacity of treatment this little poem shows the grace 
and elegance of Sicilian verse. 



IX. 

SIR THOMAS MORE. 

1480-1535. 

IT is not a rare occurrence to meet with references 
to Sir Thomas More as the earliest master of 
English prose composition. In connection with that 
statement the very same writers are apt to quote from 
his " Utopia " as being the best known of that author's 
works. On both points these historical critics are at 
fault. Certainly the " Utopia " cannot be cited as a 
specimen of More's English, for he wrote the book in 
Latin, and no translation of it was made until 155 1, — 
thirty-five years after the original was first printed, and 
sixteen years after the author's death. As a piece of 
literary work, the " Utopia " simply helps us to esti- 
mate More's faculty of invention, his resources and 
happy art of illustration, his skill in Latin composition, " 
and nothing more. 

Happily, however, there is enough remaining to us 
of this writer's work in English that we may do him 
full justice as a contributor to English letters. In the 
collection of his Enghsh writings, amounting to nearly 
fifteen hundred folio pages, which was published in 
1557, there is ample material, and that, too, of suffi- 
cient variety to serve every purpose of the literary 
student. 



74 



WELLS OF ENGLISH. 



To this old black-letter folio we turn first of all to 
discover upon what foundation rests the opinion that 
More was the earliest master of English prose. The 
very original of that dogma is not a far thing for us to 
seek. The book was dedicated to Mary, queen of Eng- 
land, by William Rastell, who appears to have been a 
relative of the man whose works he edited. In this 
dedication the editor says : " The wise and godly man, 
Sir Thomas More, Kt., etc. (my dear uncle), wrote in 
the English tongue so many and so well as no one 
Englishman (I suppose) ever wrote the iike. Whereby 
his works be worthy to be had and read of every 
Englishman that is studious or desirous to know and 
learn, not only the eloquence and propriety of the 
English tongue," etc. 

From the time of Queen Mary to the present day 
the opinion of Rastell's has been repeated as faithfully 
as if by a natural echo. Max Miiller's comprehensive 
law of laziness, which is found to have ruled so gener- 
ally in the development of language, has even v/ider 
scope than its discoverer seems ever to have dreamed 
of. It has been obeyed with too much fidelity by 
those who have undertaken to comment upon our 
literature. It has often been nothing else than this 
fundamental principle of Miiller's that has been digni- 
fied with the name of " authority of the past." It is 
so much easier to take up with the opinion, even of an 
affectionate nephew, than it is to form an independent 
judgment from having read, not only the particular au- 
thor in hand, but several others besides. 

In one of his prefaces More has a characteristic 
remark upon the habits of readers in his day, which 
ought to make the studious reader now, when there is 
so much more to be read, all the more tolerant of 



S//? THOMAS MORE. 



75 



superficial reading. The passage is of curious interest 
also, because it indicates that in the author's time the 
** primer " was a church book, and not a school book, 
as we know it. 

" Some such places yet as I had happened to find, I 
have remitted the reader unto in mine Apology, where 
for his ready finding I have numbered him the leaf. And 
yet have I for some folk done somewhat more too. For 
I see well surely many men are nowadays so delicate in 
reading, and so loth to labor, that they fare in other 
books as women fare in their primer, which though they 
be content to say sometime the fifteen psalms, and over 
that the psalms of the passion too, if they find them all 
fair set out in order at length, yet will they rather leave 
them all unsaid than to turn back to seek them out in 
other parts of their primer." 

More was by profession a lawyer, and from com- 
paratively early Hfe he was busy with public affairs ; and 
yet his English writings remind us oftener of the pulpit 
than of the Bench or the Bar. They consist chiefly of 
controversial papers, meditations, and rehgious exer- 
cises. The matters under controversy in his day were 
mostly those of the Church. It was the time of the Ref- 
ormation. He was born the same year as Tindale, — 
1480. He remained a stanch Cathofic until he was 
beheaded by Henry VHI., in 1535. One year later, 
Tindale, who had taken his place with the Reformers, 
was put to death by the same sovereign for heresy. It 
is too late to attempt to reconcile these contradictory 
events. We have to conclude that perhaps they could 
not have been reconciled even by Henry himself. 

The long and close friendship between More and 
Erasmus presents now a perplexing entanglement to 
the student of personal history. The latter was as 



'j^ WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

active as Tindale in putting the Scriptures into the 
hands of the people. He was regarded by the Pope as 
the prime mover of the Reformation. It must have 
been admiration for the learning and genius of his 
friend that made More tolerant of his tendencies. 
How he regarded the writings of Luther we can easily 
make out from his " Dialogue concerning Heresies." 
He says, — 

" For likewise, as the Holy Scripture of God, because 
of the Good Spirit that made it, is of his own nature apt 
to purge and amend the reader, though some that read 
it, of their invincible malice turn it to their harm, so do 
such writings as Luther's is, in the making whereof the 
devil is of counsel and giveth therewith a breath of his 
assistance, though the goodness of some men master the 
malice thereof, walking harmless with God's help as the 
prophet saith, upon the serpent and the cockatrice, and 
treading upon the lion and the dragon, yet be such works 
as themselves always right unwholesome to meddle with, 
meet and apt to corrupt and infect the reader." 

This well-sustained flow of language is a good speci- 
men of prose writing in the black-letter days of EngHsh 
literature. There were, however, long-winded prelates 
of that time, whose discourses show work not inferior 
to More's. I'heir scriptural allusions were likely to be 
more accurate than those of the lawyer, even if the 
application made proved to be less happy than his. It 
gives us a good idea how closely Church and State 
were united to find the privy councillor so largely 
occupied with things spiritual to the exclusion of tem- 
poralities. The great issues which were fought out 
between King and Commons a hundred years and more 
after his death were just beginning to shape themselves 
to the view of Henry's lord chancellor. Two circum- 



SIR THOMAS MORE. 



77 



Stances combined to postpone their settlement so 
many years : the one was the long-continued reign of 
Henry VIII. and that of his daughter Elizabeth, and 
the other was the late birth of Oliver Cromwell. 

As we lay aside the English writings of More and 
take up the translation of his " Utopia," the one work 
of his genius that has a permanent interest, we are 
struck with a critical remark in the preface to the 
edition of 1684. More had then been dead about a 
century and a half It was not a prosperous age for 
EngHsh letters. The Ehzabethan period of productive- 
ness had been followed by a succession of unfruitful 
years. And yet in that time the translator has this 
apology to offer for his author : " When one compares 
the best writers of the last age with these that excel in 
this, the difference is very discernible ; even the great 
Sir Francis Bacon, that was the first that writ our lan- 
guage correctly, as he is still our best author, yet in 
some places has figures so strong that they could not 
pass now before a severe judge.'' It is worth while to 
set this estimate of More alongside that of Rastell, 
and it is even better worth our while to bear in mind 
the fact that every age has the standard of taste differ- 
ing in some respects from all others. We must judge 
the literature of the past by the standard that was 
recognized at the time it was produced. 

More's " Utopia " was neither the first nor the last 
of works of its kind. In the fourth century before 
Christ, Plato had developed his idea of the true com- 
monwealth in his " Republic." In some of his other 
treatises he showed how the principles which he had 
settled would be carried into operation in actual gov- 
ernment. He pretended that his system of govern- 
ment was brought from the lost island of Atlantis nine 
thousand years before his day. In the first century of 



78 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

our era, Plutarch also tried his hand at painting an 
ideal commonwealth. His plan of government was 
based on the constitution and laws of Sparta ; for the 
scheme was worked out in connection with his Life of 
Lycurgus. Since More's day his plan has been imi- 
tated often enough to show how popular the idea was. 
The best-known of these later attempts in this line is 
the " New Atlantis " of Sir Francis Bacon. The seat 
of this ideal republic was in those seas where a great 
southern continent was then supposed to be. Naturally 
enough, Bacon regarded science and knowledge as the 
civilizers of mankind and the founders of government. 
At the same time an Italian theorist, Campanella, 
either adopted the ideas of Bacon, or else developed 
similar ideas of himself; but the Inquisition just then 
interested itself in the welfare of the philosopher's soul, 
and to that end kept his body in prison for twenty- 
seven years. It was during this term of imprisonment 
that he wrote " The City of the Sun." It is unneces- 
sary to mention recent books which are calculated to 
recall from the past Plato's " Republic " and More's 
" Utopia." 

The meaning of Utopia is " nowhere," and by taking 
this word for the title of his book. More intimates 
plainly enough that the whole scheme and polity of 
his State is imaginary. The book was written in 
i6 15-16. At that time all Europe was eager for 
knowledge of America. More pretended to have had 
his information in regard to a remote xAmerican people 
from a seafaring man whom he met at Antwerp. He 
manages to introduce this " ancient mariner " in com- 
pany with Peter Giles in a very dramatic way. 

'■' Upon a certain day when I had heard the divine 
service in our Lady's Church — which is the fairest, the 
most gorgeous and curious church of building in all the 



SIR THOMAS MORE. 79 

city, and also most frequented of people — and, the ser- 
vice being done, was ready to go home to my lodging, 
I chanced to espy this aforesaid Peter talking with a 
certain stranger, a man well-stricken in age, with a black, 
sun-burned face, a long beard, and a cloak cast homely 
about his shoulders, whom by his favor and apparel 
forthwith I judged to be a mariner. But the said Peter, 
seeing me, came unto me and saluted me." 

Through his friend Giles, More became acquainted 
with the seaman Hithloday (that is, Follyson), who 
gives an account of the Utopians. An air of verisimili- 
tude is given to the whole by explicitness of statement. 
In a letter to Giles, More refers to the account of a 
bridge across a waterless stream in Utopia, to learn if 
his recollection of it is correct. His sohcitude in re- 
gard to the length of a bridge where there was no 
water to be crossed is a fine example of what we call 
by the absurdly inconsistent terms " dry humor." 
The passage is characteristic : — 

" For whereas Hithloday (unless my memory fail me) 
saith that the bridge which goeth over the river of Anyder 
(that is, Lackwater) is five hundred paces, that is to say, 
half a mile in length, my John saith that two hundred of 
those paces must be plucked away; for that the river con- 
taineth there not above three hundred paces in breadth. 
I pray you heartily call the matter to your remembrance. 
For if you agree with him, I also will say as you say, and 
confess myself deceived. But if you cannot remember 
the thing, I will write as I have done, and as mine own 
remembrance serveth me. For as I will take good heed 
that there be in my book nothing false, so if there be any- 
thing doubtful, I will rather tell a lie than make one, 
because I had rather be good than wise." 

We cannot hope, at this day, to understand all the 
ironical allusions to men and measures in More's book ; 



8o WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

but it is easy to see why it was not translated and pub- 
lished in England during the lifetime of Henry VIII. 
No doubt copies of the Latin editions which were 
printed on the Continent from 15 17 onwards were in 
the hands of scholars and public men all those years, 
and that the veiled sarcasm of the work was more 
effective than open attacks upon the Government 
would have been. 



X. 

SIR THOMAS ELYOT. 

1495 ?-i 546. 

ABOUT the end of the sixteenth century, Nash, 
who has ever since been famiharly known as 
Tom Nash, wrote an " Address to the Gentlemen 
Students of both Universities." The performance is 
characteristic of the writer and his time ; it embraces 
a great deal of the literary gossip of that day. But 
what interests us just now in this rare old pamphlet is 
the fact that it contains mention of a man who had 
been conspicuous in Hterary circles fifty years before. 
The reputation with which Nash was there dealing was 
too far from his time and from his associations to leave 
grounds for doubting any critic's candor. Indeed, he 
seems to have known very little of Elyot's life ; for the 
fact that this mention of him occurs in a pamphlet 
addressed to the members of the universities makes it 
appear that the writer supposed Elyot was a university 
man. Such presumption was most reasonable from the 
character of his writings, and the mistaken impression 
under which Nash labored has been removed from the 
minds of scholars only within the last ten years. In 
discussing the Hterature of his own day, which hap- 
pened to be the day of Shakspeare, Nash took occasion 
to refer to the eminent men of an earlier generation 
who had spent their lives in literary pursuits. Speak- 

6 



82 WELLS OF ENGLLSH. 

ing of the first half of his century, he says, "But 
amongst others in that age, Sir Thomas Elyot's ele- 
gance did sever itself from all equals, although Sir 
Thomas More, with his comical wit, at that instant was 
not altogether idle." 

This bit of criticism couples two names which were 
prominent in the time of Henry VIII. Both were 
associated with matters of state and with literature. It 
is not without interest to note that the one of these 
names which Nash thought worthy to be written first is 
the one which the world has neglected and wellnigh 
forgotten. More has been faithfully kept in mind, 
while his fellow has maintained but a shadowy reputation. 
From the time of Ehzabeth to the present, one needs 
to read our literary history with a good degree of care 
that the name of Elyot may not escape him. As in the 
case of Andrew Rykman, you may " read his name and 
date." More than that relating to the man will be 
difficult to find. With regard to his literary work, the 
deficiency has been largely supplied by Mr. Croft's 
edition of Elyot's chief work, " The Boke named the 
Governour devised by Sir Thomas Elyot, Knight : 
153 1," Before that edition appeared, in 1880, all 
notices of this author seemed rather echoes of early 
applause than opinions formed from an acquaintance 
with his work. They were expressed in the most 
general terms. As a sample, it will prove of interest to 
read what Ascham, Queen Elizabeth's tutor and the 
author of ^' The Schoolmaster," has to say of this man, 
" which surehe for his lerning in all kynde of knowledge 
bringeth much worshyp to all the nobilitie of Eng- 
lande." This gracious recognition perhaps was not 
attended by a " solid reflection " which took in the^ 
comparison made at a later day. Hallam wrote that 



SIR THOMAS ELYOT. 83 

he considered Elyot " worthy, upon the whole, on 
account of the solidity of his reflections, to hold a 
higher place than the author of ' The Schoolmaster,' 
to whom in some respects he bears a good deal of 
resemblance." 

Sir Thomas Elyot died in 1546. The date of his 
birth is not known, and we have no means for deter- 
mining his age. There are circumstances that lead 
one to suppose that he was not an old man when he 
died. As we have seen, "The Governour" was first 
published in 153 1. It may be thought that a work of 
so much learning and gravity marked the full maturity 
of the writer's powers, and that fifteen years later he 
had reached the full limit of life. But it is plain that 
Elyot did not consider this as the heaviest task he set 
himself to do. About 1537 he was at work upon a 
" Dictionarle declarying latine by englishe." As this 
was a new field, he must have contemplated many 
years of diligent work, such as a man feeling himself 
much past his prime would not willingly undertake. 

This project of a Latin-English dictionary is of Kter- 
ary interest as the earliest work of its kind. It is also 
of personal interest, because it shows us the nature of 
Elyot's studies, and moreover it gives us one of the 
pleasantest notices of Henry VIII. that is anywhere to 
be met. Elyot writes of his king, " Your Highness in 
the presence of divers your noblemen, commending my 
enterprise, affirmed that if I would earnestly travail 
therein, your Highness, as well with your excellent 
counsel as with such books as your Grace had and I 
lacked, would therein aid me." 

His last work — written, perhaps, in the last year of 
his life — was entitled " The Preservative agaynste 
Deth." It was, no doubt, written in anticipation of his 



84 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

own death, and its purpose seems to have been to show 
how much of his hfe would not be terminated by 
that event. It contains in brief his ideal of life. Of 
his own position as a public man he writes in the 
preface, — 

"A knight hath received that honor, not only to de- 
fend with the sword Christ's faith and his proper coun- 
try against them which impugneth the one or invadeth 
the other, but also, and that most chiefly, by the mean 
of his dignity (if that be employed where it should be, 
and esteemed as it ought to be), he should more ef- 
fectually with his learning and wit assail vice and error, 
most pernicious enemies to Christian men, having 
thereunto for his sword and spear his tongue and his 
pen." 

This lofty ideal of public duties and social obliga- 
tions in civil life goes far towards reconciling us to the 
inequalities of condition and to the hardships of the 
many, under the feudal system. The flower of chiv- 
alry, if so fair as this, was worth great outlay in its pro- 
duction. That Elyot lived up to his ideal might be 
inferred from the character of his work, had he not 
favored us with this reflection upon his life ; — 

" Yet am I not ignorant that divers there be which 
do not thankfully esteem my labors, dispraising my stud- 
ies as vain and unprofitable, saying in derision that I 
have nothing won thereby, but the name only of a maker 
of books, and that I set the trees, but the printer eateth 
the fruits. Indeed, although disdain and envy do cause 
them to speak it, yet will I not deny but that they say 
truly. For if I would have employed my study about the 
increase of my private commodity which I have spent 
in writing of books for others' necessity, few men 
doubt (I suppose) that do know me, but that I should 
have attained ere this time to have been much more 



SIR THOMAS ELYOT. . 85 

wealthy, and in the respect of the world in a more 
estimation." 

The above quotation will help to form an idea of 
the conditions under which literary work was done in 
England three hundred and fifty years ago. It may 
reconcile some workers in the less attractive fields 
to-day. 

"The Governour" is the one work of Elyot's by 
which his reputation lives ; but it is little less than a 
miracle that this life has been prolonged. The popu- 
larity of the book was great in its author's Hfetime. It 
went through several editions, and was quoted by Eng- 
lish and foreign writers. In the Elizabethan era it was 
read chiefly by the studious few. Commentators upon 
Shakspeare have remarked that the incident in the hfe 
of Henry V. to which allusion is made in the following 
lines, is told in " The Governour ; " but they have failed 
to tell us that the story can be traced to no earlier 
original : — 

" Chief Justice I am assured, if I be measured rightly, 
Yopr Majesty hath no just cause to hate me. 

King. No ! 
How might a prince of my great hopes forget 
So great indignities you laid upon me ? 
What ! rate, rebuke, and roughly send to prison 
The immediate heir of England ! Was this easy ? 
May this be washed in Lethe, and forgotten ? 

Chief Justice. I then did use the person of your father ; 
The image of his power lay then in me : 
And, in the administration of his law. 
Whiles I was busy for the commonwealth. 
Your Highness pleased to forget my place, 
The majesty and power of law and justice, 
The image of the king whom I presented. 
And struck me in my very seat of judgment." ^ 

1 Henry IV. Part H. Act v. 



S6 WELLS OF EiVGLISH. 

There is no entry upon the rolls of court of the 
commitment of the prince for contempt or for other 
cause. 

Elyot's "Boke named the Governour" is devoted 
to an account of the treatment which is proper to the 
well-born child in his infancy, the exercises and studies 
which will engage his youth, and the employments and 
offices which will occupy his mature years. The work 
is supposed to have been modelled upon one in Italian 
by Patrizi, '* De Regno et Regis Institutione." Elyot 
had been a resident of Italy as agent of his Govern- 
ment, and was no doubt familiar with the literature of 
that country. His work shows an acquaintance with 
Patrizi, as it does with many other writers in various 
languages. Perhaps it would be nearer the truth in the 
case to refer both these works to Xenophon for their 
original. 

It will be seen that the plan of the author was such 
as to admit of the display of a great amount of learn- 
ing. In its development he would be influenced by 
his previous reading. He would naturally quote the 
opinions of earlier writers, and accompany these with 
a running commentary of his own. In citing from 
ancient authors he has often done more than to give 
the substance of their words in English. He has 
often made translations of extended passages. In 
looking at this part of his work, we must bear in mind 
that there were English versions of very few classical 
writings. All the more difficult then was it to adapt 
our language to the work of translating, and all the 
more valuable were his efforts to English readers. His 
metrical versions, though clumsy, seem to give some 
intimation of the manner of Spenser. As a speci- 
men, the following from Homer will answer. He 



SIR THOMAS ELYOT. 8/ 

introduces the lines with the naive statemert that 
they are " put in Englisshe, not so wel as I founde 
them in Greke, but as well as my witte and tonge 
can expresse it." 

" When I thee consider, Ulysses, I perceive 
Thou dost not dissemble to me in thy speech 
As others have done, which craftily can deceive, 
Untruly reporting where they list to preach 
Of things never done ; such falsehood they do teach. 
But in thy words there is a right good grace. 
And that thy mind is good, it showeth in thy face." ^ 

One stanza from the translation of some lines of 
Claudian will be of interest, because it is not certain 
that an English version of the same was again attempted 
for almost three hundred years. No complete trans- 
lation of Claudian was published until 1817. Elyot 
prefaces his performance with this statement : " The 
versis I have translated out of Jatine in to englishe, not 
without great studie and difficultie, not observynge the 
ordre as they stande, but the sentence belongynge to 
my purpose." The spelling in the lines is modernized, 
as it was in the lines from Homer. 

" What thou mayest do, delight not for to know, 
But rather what thing will become thee best , 
Embrace thou virtue and keep thy courage low. 
And think that always measure is a feast. 
Love well thy people, care also for the least. 
And when thou studiest for thy commodity, 
Make them all partners of thy felicity." 

" The Boke named the Governour " was a perfect 
treasury of knowledge to the men of its day. For us 
its interest is in the view it gives us of learning in that 
time. It forms an agreeable and instructive example 



Homer, Odyssey, xi. 362-366. 



88 S/J^ THOMAS ELYOT. 

of early literary work in our language. It is a lasting 
monument to the varied and extensive learning, to the 
patient industry, and to the literary skill of its author, 
who was the generous rival of Sir Thomas More, the 
valued friend of Cardinal Wolsey, and the trusted 
ambassador of his king, Henry VIII. 



XI. 

SIR THOMAS WYATT. 

1 503- 1 542. 

BOTH in time and in rank, Wyatt was the first 
of the courtly poets, as they were called, who 
indulged their taste for letters and cultivated the art of 
poetry under Henry VHI. That this department of 
our literature stood much in need of cultivation at the 
time, will be seen just as soon as the bucket is swung 
a little deeper, and draws from the strong but rude 
fancies of Dunbar and John Skelton. The grace which 
was to polish and refine the early vigor of our verse 
was partly applied in the adoption of approved forms, 
and partly developed in the smoothing of our speech. 
In both these ways Wyatt and his followers labored to 
good purpose. 

We shall the more fully realize the poverty of our 
literature in his day if we reflect that Wyatt was born 
in 1503, and that his education was completed within 
the first half-century of printing in England. This 
education was happily supplemented with residence in 
France and at the Spanish court, where he made him- 
self familiar with the artistically finished work of the 
Italian and Spanish poets. He had the taste to esti- 
mate at its proper value the worth of exquisite work- 
manship upon rich material, and he had the skill to 
apply this to his native tongue. He attempted in 



90 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

English several new forms of verse with such success 
that his odes and sonnets and rondeaus have served as 
models to the present day. What this service implies 
can be estimated only upon a survey of earlier and of 
later verse. 

Wyatt is read but little now except as a master. He 
died at the age of thirty-nine, and his short life was 
filled with important public employments. It was, 
therefore, wisely well that he attempted no wide range 
of subjects. The theme he chose is the one to which 
the world has been pleased most of all to listen. This 
he elaborated under every variety of form, and it is his 
form of expression which most attracts us. Of the 
sincerity of his feeling there need be no doubt, since in 
one instance, at least, it occasioned his imprisonment 
and seriously imperilled his life. 

It was about the time of the execution of Anne 
Boleyn that Wyatt was committed to the Tower. He 
had been one of her train in her passage from Dover 
to Calais in 1532, and he ungraciously alludes to this 
service in his quaint lines, — 

" Sometime I fled the fire that me brent, 
By sea, by land, by water, and by wind; 
And now I follow the coals that be quent 
From Dover to Calais against my mind." 

Another of Wyatt's amatory pieces is addressed to a 
lady by the name of Anna, and it is assumed that this 
was Anne Boleyn. Such an inference is altogether 
reasonable; but the verses may be regarded as the 
language of compliment, since the fair gentlewoman 
was the poet's cousin. At any rate, whatever his sen- 
timents may have been, he had not the temerity to 
risk rivalry with a royal suitor. Indeed, it is reported 
for fact that when Henry VIII, was suing for a dis- 



^ 



SIR THOMAS WVATT. 91 

pensation from the pope that would enable him to 
divorce Catherine and marry the poet's kinswoman, it 
was Wyatt himself who exclaimed, " Heavens ! that a 
man cannot repent him of his sins without the pope's 
leave ! " It was this remark that led the king to con- 
sult the universities for their pliant consent, and thus 
to circumvent the power of the Romish Church. 

The exquisite finish of Wyatt's verse may be seen in 
delicate touches. \ single word may be so aptly 
chosen or so admirably set as to arrest the reader's 
attention and often recur to his mind. Such felicity 
of speech is to be marked in the line, — 

" For the eye is traitor of the heart." 

Even more strongly does this quahty of his language 
appear in the kindred verse, — 

" But yet, alas ! that look, all sotd.'^ 

This marked propriety of taste is not confined to the 
choice of single words or the order of a phrase, but 
it is shown upon so large a scale as to prove that 
it must have been a principle of the writer's thought, 
and a law to his pen. This is illustrated by the follow- 
ing lines of the poet 

"to his unkind i.ove. 

" What rage is this ? what furor ? of what kind ? 
What power, what plague, doth weary thus my mind ? 
Within my bones to rankle is assigned 
What poison, pleasant, sweet ? " 

In this the art of the handling belongs to a master's 
hand. Later writers may strive to imitate it without 
shame ; they cannot aim to surpass it without pre- 
sumption. The cadence in the music of the last line 
corresponds precisely to the sudden falling of the calm 



92 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

upon the rage which has preceded. All risk of shock 
is saved by the elastic linking of alliteration. Once 
shifted to another plane, we find the epithets " pleas- 
ant, sweet," held together not less by their meaning 
and common application than by the similarity of their 
closing sound. One cannot fail to notice in the above 
how the poet passes in the first line from specific 
questions to one which is general, in a tone of despair. 
In the second line there is good ground for suspecting 
that the word " power" is used, as it was often used in 
the poet's day, in the sense of a demoniac influence. 
The alliteration of this word and the following "plague" 
is to be noted ; and also of this pair and the pair in 
the fourth line, when it will be seen that alliteration 
applies to more than single letters or to simple sounds. 
In passing from the second to the third line, the feel- 
ing is intensified by substituting the torture of the 
body for mental weariness. The overflow of this last 
question gives a rushing movement, which is effectually 
checked, in sense and in rhythm, at the middle of the 
last line. 

As a specimen of Wyatt's verse which can be read 
with most satisfaction after these more than three hun- 
dred years, may be named the Address to his Lute. 
The piece is too long to be quoted here in full, but 
fortunately it is too familiar, and too easily accessible 
in collections of our poets, to need that more than the 
opening stanza be given. 

" Blame not my Lute ! for he must sound 
Of this or that as liketh me; 
For lack of wit the Lute is bound 

To give such tunes as pleaseth me; 
Though my songs be somewhat strange, 
And speak such words as touch my change, 
Blame not my Lute 1 " 



SIR THOMAS WYATT. 93 

But though Wyatt by his verse has earned the same 
sort of praise in England as Petrarch enjoyed in Italy, 
it is not for this alone, nor chiefly, that he deserves to 
be read by the student of our literature. He was the 
first to adorn English prose with the grace of style. 
This appears in his private and official correspondence, 
which has been preserved to the present. One of his 
friends, Thomas Wriothesly, no doubt had this charm 
of his pen in mind when he began one of his epistles 
to the poet in this wise : " Master Wyatt, I thank you 
for your sundry gentle letters." " Gentle," in its old 
English sense, was just the term with which to charac- 
terize those missives. The word had not then ac- 
quired any notion of weakness. The man who penned 
them was accounted a person of clear head and steady 
nerve ; for when he was sent ambassador to Spain in 
1537, his instructions were "to endeavor to fish out 
the very bottom of the emperor's intentions." Charles 
V. was at that time too well known to be approached 
by ordinary diplomates upon such an errand. 

It is not often that a private gentleman, and a poet 
at that, is called upon to answer to a capital charge. 
Wyatt defended himself against the government in 
1 541, under trial for treason. He did this success- 
fully, and the oration he then delivered is a dignified 
and manly production. It contains elevated senti- 
ments expressed with dignity, and commonplaces 
turned with elegance and ease. The tone of the 
speech is reflected in the satire which he wrote shortly 
after upon the courtier's life, wherein he says, — 

" I cannot crouch nor kneel to such a wrong, 
To worship them like God on earth alone, 
That are as wolves these wily lambs among. 
I cannot with my words complain and moan, 



94 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

And suffer nought, nor smart without complaint, 
Nor turn the word that from my mouth is gone." 

The same high note of moral courage and perso- 
nal independence sounds through that ode of his 
beginning, — 

*' I am as I am, and so will I be ; 
But how that I am none knoweth truly. 
Be it evil, be it well, be I bond, be I free, 
I am as I am, and so will I be." 



XII. 

THOMAS TUSSER. 

1515-1580? 

IT is a very easy thing to place such a writer as 
Tusser. The quality of his work stamps plainly 
the nature and character of the man. The reader of 
his " Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry " will 
recognize at a glance a genius kindred to that of 
Hesiod. He has often been called the British Varro, 
or the English Columella ; but it is from the early 
Greek bucolic bard that his literary lineage is to be 
traced. He handles his homely themes with a skill 
that is lacking to the Roman writers, except to Virgil, 
who had nothing of Tusser's practical knowledge of 
husbandry. The latter compares not unfavorably with 
the author of the '' Georgics " even in the embellishment 
of his subject, and he certainly excels all other writers 
of his peculiar didactic class in making his maxims apt 
to hold their place in the memory. His lightly beaten 
measures and abundant rhymes furnished a model to 
many a " Poor Richard," and his axiomatic rules fur- 
nished thoughts that have kept in circulation to the 
present time. His book has been a source from which 
successive generations of almanac- makers have drawn 
material. It is safe to say that his work has long out- 
lived the memory of the man. 



96 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

Tusser belongs to the earlier part of the Elizabethan 
era; his death happening somewhere about 1580. In 
its ov/n humble way, his work is as remarkable as is 
that of his contemporaries, who were making English 
literature the glory of the realm and of the race. We 
may disregard the subject-matter of his work, — that 
which shows how he labored to promote the almost 
sole industry of England in that age, — and examine it 
now simply from a Hterary point of view. And the 
wonder is to find that a book written for the edifica- 
tion of the traditional " Hodge " should show anything 
of literary grace or refinement. It will be found, how- 
ever, one of the most curious and instructive books 
to be consulted in regard to the history of English 
metres. 

Naturally enough, rhyming was the contrivance most 
relied upon for suiting the phrase to easy memorizing. 
Rhymes are therefore frequent everywhere in Tusser. 
It will be not without interest at least to see how he 
uses them, and to compare his usage with that of later 
poets. A little attention to his use of sectional rhyme, 
as it is called, will enable us to discover this in the 
dramatists, where it is apt to be overlooked. As an 
example, the first section of the second of these two 
lines contains a perfect rhyme, independent of the 

final, — 

" It is too much, we daily hear, 
To wive and thrive both in one year." 

Upon precisely the same old Saxon pattern. Burns 
wrote, — 

" Let other poets raise a fracas 
'Bout vi7zes and 'wi7tes and drunken Bacchus." 

From Shakspeare's " Coriolanus " we get this sectional 
rhyme, where final rhyme is disregarded, — 



THOMAS TUSSER. 97 

" He hath won 
Withyiz//7^ a name to Caius Marcius; these 
In honor follows Coriolanus." 

More frequently than otherwise, the sectional rhyme is 
only consonantal, the vowels being unlike. The first 
line of the following, from Tusser, gives us an instance 
of this rhyme : — 

*' By leave and love of God above 
I mean to shew, in verses few. 
How through the breers my youthful years 
Have run their race." 

The " Faerie Queene " of Spet^se^ffords plenty of 
specimens like this : — ^^~^\^ 

" He staid his steed for humble miser's sake." 

The following is from the " Taming of the Shrew : " 

" These kites 
That bate and beat and will not be obedient." 

In this, from ^' Romeo and Juliet," we find the conso- 
nantal rhyme in both sections : 

" I '11 look to like, if looking liking move." 

Some of Tusser's rhymes are so cheaply made that 
they can be justified only on the plea that he was con- 
triving means whereby the rustic mind could grasp and 
hold his thought. Such are the following : — 

" To teach and unteach in a school is unmeet ; 
To do and undo to the purse is unsweet." 

*' Both bear dixxd forbear now and then as ye may." 

Shakspeare is about as easy with his rhyme in the 
" Taming of the Shrew," — 

"And will yoii, jiill you, I will marry you." 
7 



98 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

And again in " Love's Labor 's Lost," — 

" To feel only looking on fairest oifair." 

The rhyming section is less frequently the last one 
of the verse in Tusser. Here is a specimen : — 

" Good husbandmen must moil and ioil."" 

From the " Faerie Queene " we have, — 

" He vilely entertains, and will or «///, 
Bears her away." 

Also from the " King Henry IV." of Shakspeare, — 

" What horse ? A roan, a crop-ear, is it not ? 
It is, my lord. 

That roan shall be my throne" 

We come to realize how important a part this sectional 
rhyme plays in English verse when we find it creeping 
into blank verse. It is difficult to say whether Milton 
availed himself of its use, or whether he unconsciously 
stumbled upon it : but the examples are frequent, as : 

*' Their armor helped their harm, crushed in and bruised." 

Another familiar contrivance of Tusser's is the in- 
verse rhyme. It needs no definition. An instance of 
it will make its nature plain, — 

" These steps both reach and teach thee shall 
To come by thrift to shift withal." 

"Tam o' Shanter" is of the same construction; but 
the movement is more rapid, to suit the thought : — 

" The piper loud and louder blew, 
The dancers quick and quicker flew." 

This inverted rhyme seems to have been made popular 
by Tusser ; at any rate, it occurs very commonly after 
his time. It may be said to abound in Spenser. The 



THOMAS TUSSER. 99 

reader will come upon it in Shakspeare, where.it is 
used to mark the sections of the verse. This is par- 
ticularly the case when the first section contains two 
accents- From " Love's Labor 's Lost " we have such 
instances as these : — 

" She must lie here of mere necessity." 

" Vows are but breath, and breath a vapor is." 

Milton uses this rhyme to the same end in " Paradise 
Lost," — 

"Rocks, caves, \2iks.%,fens, bogs, dens, and shades of death.'' 

By the same means he elsewhere shows that the c^sura 
comes after the third accent : — 

"And brought into this worlds, world oiviot." 

Its use and its effect are the same in this from " Richard 

IL": — 

" For 't is a sign of love, and love to Richard 
Is a strange brooch, in this all-hating world.'* 

When it is seen how much rhyme has had to do with 
the settHng of the accent of our verse, it will be evi- 
dent at once in what relation this stands to metre, and 
the effect of Tusser's overabundance of rhyme will be 
appreciated. He tried his hand upon almost every kind 
of rhymed verse in English, and a few verses in Latin. 
He wrote sonnets, acrostics, and alliterative pieces, 
running one of the latter to the extent of twelve lines, 
and having every word begin with a T. His " hnked 
verses," as they are called, were written upon his leaving 
court to live in the country, and they are sufficiently 
curious to warrant the quoting of the first and second 
stanzas. The linking is done by working the last line 
of each stanza into the first line of the succeeding 
one. 



100 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

" Muse not, my friend, to find me here, 
Contented with this mean estate, 
And seem to do with willing cheer 
That courtier doth so deadly hate. 
For Fortune, look ! 

Hath changed hue, 
And I my book 
Must learn anew. 

" And yet of force to learn anew 

Would much abash the dulled brain ; 

I crave to judge, if this be true, 
The truant child that knoweth the pain. 

But where a spight of force must be, 

What is that wight may disagree .-' " 

and so on indefinitely. 

Tusser's work was familiar to the early colonists of 
America, and its influence may be traced, I think, in 
some compositions which have circulated, after the 
manner of Homeric times, without publication. I have 
heard repeated portions of a rhymed inventory of a 
farmer's personal estate, which ran in this measure : 

" An asher's pail, a thresher's flail, 
A frying-pan and kettle, 
A long cart rope, a tub of soap, 
An iron wedge and beetle." 

Tusser gives such a catalogue in twenty-one stanzas, of 
which the following will serve as a specimen : 

"A short saw and long saw to cut a-two logs. 
An axe and an adze to make trough for thy hogs ; 
A Dover Court beetle, and wedges with steel, 
Strong lever to raise up the block from the wheel." 

The allusion in " Dover Court " is to one that was 
all speakers and no hearers. It must have been pro- 
verbial in that day, and Tusser's use of it as an epithet 
is an instance of his humor. 



THOMAS TUSSER. lOI 

The poet's language, where he deals with the most 
familiar things of common life, is particularly helpful 
to one in getting at the meaning and use of many of 
our old colonial words and phrases. The writer when 
a boy was accustomed to the word " miching," just as 
Shakspeare uses it in " Hamlet," where the prince 
says to Ophelia : " Marry, this is miching mallecho ; 
it means mischief." The verb from the same source 
was also in use ; but he never came across the de- 
rived nomen agentis until he read Tusser's directions 
for gathering fruit : — 

" The moon in the wane, gather fruit for to last ; 
But winter fruit gather when Michel is past ; 
Though michers, that love not to buy or to crave, 
Make some gather sooner, else few for to have." 

The context makes it plain that the " micher " is such 
a character as we should now call a sneak-thief 

Tusser is good, not only for explaining single words, 
but for helping us trace the origin of many sayings. 
The proverb, " The fool and his money are soon 
parted," is not easily hunted down to the lair from 
which it sprang ; but these lines contain the sentiment 
in Tusser's form of expression : — 

" A fool and his money be soon at debate, 
Which after, with sorrow, repents him too late." 

Another saying which the poet made popular is 
this : — 

"At Christmas play and make good cheer. 
For Christmas comes but once a year." 

It is not necessary to suppose that Tusser originated 
any of the proverbial sayings which are scattered so 
plentifully through his works. It is far more likely 



102 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

that the ideas were common property long before ; 
but he gave them a literary form, and put them into 
circulation in connection with matters of most general 
interest. By giving them an almost universal currency 
in England, he secured their admission into the dramas 
of the era that followed, and thus contributed to their 
perpetuation. Tusser's quaint phraseology is to be 
met with in Shakspeare, — the very best evidence we 
could have of its favor with the masses. 



XIII. 

HENRY HOWARD. 

15 18-1547. 

THE beginning of the sixteenth century saw 
unwonted activity in Europe. The recent 
discovery of a new world had opened a wide field 
for enterprise and adventure. The wonderful success 
which had attended the voyages of discovery and of 
conquest roused a spirit that had slumbered since the 
time of the Crusades. The old spirit of loyalty and of 
worship was revived, but its fires were kindled on 
strange altars, and the objects of its devotion were not 
the same. There remained as yet just a little of the 
old-time chivalry rather as a sentiment of the heart 
than as a principle of action. How grotesque that 
spirit would appear in the new age of the world, the 
genius of Cervantes was about to show. Men were be- 
coming practical. The world was outgrowing the 
childish fancy that it could reach out its hands and 
grasp the splendor of the rainbow. It was learning 
what it could possess itself of, and in such things was 
hoping to find all enjoyment. The East no longer 
blazed with the glory it had worn. That brightness 
faded, and the world turned itself square about to see 
what promise was painted on the western heavens. 
Wealth of gold and extent of power were the stuff of 
which dreams were woven in that day. But gold takes 
added value from the skill with which it is wrought, 



104 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

and power is ennobled when employed to the benefit 
of man. 

The recent invention of printing, accompanied by a 
revival of learning, could not but stimulate the arts. 
Whether literature is to be classed with these or not, it 
is perfectly clear that it must share with them the 
kindly influence of the age. That there was room for 
improvement will appear from even a hasty glance over 
English poetry of the fifteenth century. The uncouth 
verse of Gower and of Skelton lacked all the grace and 
most of the strength of poetry. It was poor in inven- 
tion ; but, even worse than that, its borrowed thoughts 
and fancies were presented in beggarly attire. There 
was a demand for something better, and it was becom- 
ing that an improvement in form should precede purer 
sentiments and loftier thoughts. The case required 
not so much poetic talent as a fine poetic sense. The 
inspiration of genius could not supply the want of 
an intelligent and discriminating judgment, capable of 
deciding what the elements of poetry really are. 

English poetry had thus far gained so little compass 
of measures, and was so burdened with traditional 
rhyme and alliteration, that at this stage of its develop- 
ment, form was of greater importance than matter. As 
an art it was still in the archaic period. Its conditions 
required a restatement of Horace's well-known axiom, 
" Poeta nascitur, non fit." The poet of the future at 
that time was to be made. He was to be shown by 
examples what was the capacity of the English lan- 
guage for rhythm. Whoever had the ability to exhibit 
this could inaugurate a new reign of law and order in 
poetry. Talent must be accompanied by cultivated 
taste ; it must call to its aid instruction. The leader in 
the reform of poetry must be born to an easy fortune. 



HENRY HOWARD. IO5 

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, must have seemed 
just such a favored child of song. Born about 15 16, 
and beheaded in 1547, his short life of not more than 
thirty-one years was wholly comprised within the first 
half of the sixteenth century. His day was one of 
brilliant promise to the poet and to the world j but that 
promise was kept only to the future readers of English 
verse. To the poet the promise was cruelly broken ; 
the shadows deepened soon, and closed in early night. 
The wonder is that in an age so troubled, enough of 
cheer and light ca.me into his heart that he could sing 
the simple yet perfect music of his song. 

Surrey's verse is essentially amatory, in accordance 
with the traditions prevailing in his time. Even his 
translations from Virgil are of passages which show the 
sovereign power within her realms of the Paphian 
queen. He has often been compared to Petrarch, and 
though it is an honor to any poet to be named in con- 
nection with the Italian, even as an imitator, yet in his 
case the English pupil has been greatly wronged. It 
has been thought necessary to regard all the poet's 
sentimental effusions as addressed to some real or ideal 
mistress, such as was the Laura of Petrarch's devotion, 
or Stella, the dream of Sidney's fervid fancy. Surrey 
names but once the object of his love, and this in 
a sonnet which will serve as a good example of his 
verse : — 

*' From Tuscane came my lady's worthy race, — 

Fair Florence was sometime their ancient seat; 
The western isle whose pleasant shore doth face 

Wild Camber's cliffs, did give her lively heat ; 
Fostered she was with milk of Irish breast; 

Her sire an earl, her dame of prince's blood ; 
From tender years in Britain she doth rest 

With king's child, where she tasteth costly food; 



I06 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

Hunsdon did first present her to my eyen ; 

Bright is her hue, and Geraldine she hight; 
Hampton me taught to wish her first for mine ; 

And Windsor, alas ! doth chase me from her sight. 
Her beauty of kind, her virtues from above, — 
Happy is he that can obtain her love." 

Tliis sonnet tells us all we can glean from the poet 
concerning the fair Geraldine. Not another line of 
Surrey's can the reader confidently assume was ad- 
dressed to her. He wrote of love, for under Henry 
Vni. this theme occupied the thoughts of court, of 
clergy, and of common folk ; but the half-dozen wives 
of the monarch learned to their cost that even this sub- 
ject was not too seriously to be treated. The poet 
could well bewail the fickleness of love. In 1536 he 
sat, together with his father, upon the trial of his kins- 
woman, Anne Boleyn. The day following the execu- 
tion of the queen, he saw her memory insulted by 
another royal marriage. The inconstancy of the king 
caused the separation of the English Church from that 
of Rome, and overthrew every monastic foundation in 
the country. The range of topics upon which one 
could at that time safely write, and hope to find inter- 
ested readers, was extremely limited. The wonder is 
that we find so much truth of feehng and purity of sen- 
timent calling for a more refined and elegant expres- 
sion. Surrey gave to the work of improving English 
verse the best efforts of his genius. His fellow poet, 
Thomas Churchyard, thus compliments his integrity as 
a writer : — 

" And used the pen as he was taught, and other gifts also, 
Which made him hold the cap on head where some do 
crouch full low." 

The sonnet which has been quoted above, although 
lacking the smoothness and easy grace of which the 



1 



HENRY HOWARD. IQJ 

poet elsewhere proved himself capable, is yet evidence 
how far he improved upon the harsh and rude diction 
that had up to this time prevailed. In some of his son- 
nets, notably in the one on " Spring," which is quoted 
most frequently of all, the crudeness of an earlier 
period appears in forced alliteration and in unusual 
placing of the accent. The most perfect specimen is 
one in which the sentiment is borrowed from Horace ; 
but the language is unequalled by anything earlier, and 
rarely surpassed by later work. 

" Set me whereas the sun doth parch the green, 

Or where his beames do not dissolve the ice ; 
In temperate heat where he is felt and seen, 

In presence pressed of people mad or wise ; 
Set me in high or yet in low degree, 

In longest night or in the shortest day ; 
In clearest sky, or where clouds thickest be, \ 

In lusty youth, or when my hairs are gray; 
Set me in heaven, in earth, or else in hell, 

In hill or dale, or in the foaming flood. 
Thrall or at large, alive whereso I dwell. 

Sick or in health, in evil fame or good, — 
Hers will I be, and only with this thought 

Content myself, although my chance be nought." 

But that which gives Surrey his chief claim to dis- 
tinction is the fact that so far as we are now able to 
discover, he was the earliest of our English poets to 
use blank verse. This is a matter of all the greater 
interest inasmuch as Milton, more than a hundred 
years later, evidently indulged the fancy that he was 
himself entitled to this credit, for he claimed " Para- 
dise Lost " was '' the first example set in English of 
ancient liberty recovered to heroic poem from the 
troublesome and modern bondage of rhyming." The 
mistake on Milton's part is all the more remarkable 
because he had assisted in editing the earlier poets 



I08 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

of his country, and must have been familiar with most 
of their works. Moreover, Thomas Heywood, in his 
" Apology for Actors," 1612, had declared that there 
was " not any measured verse, used amongst Greeks, 
Latins, Italians, etc., but may be exprest in English, 
be it in blank verse or metre." Also, Roger Ascham, 
in his '' Schoolmaster," denounces " rude, beggarly 
rhyming" in English, as "first brought into Italy by 
Goths and Huns." He clearly had in mind a com- 
parison of such poetry with the unrhymed poetry of 
the ancients, and with the blank verse in English 
before his day. 

Any specimen of Surrey's translation from Virgil 
would suffer in comparison with translations of later 
date. To appreciate the merit of his work one should 
read it along with that of Gawain Douglas. It will 
then appear how greatly our language was improved, 
and how complete a master Surrey was of the art of 
expression. One passage will serve as an illustration 
of the poet's manner as well as more, and perhaps 
none will better display his quality of tenderness than 
the lines near the end of the second book of the 
" ^neid," wherein the ghost of Creiisa bids her hus- 
band farewell : 

" ' Sweet spouse,' quoth she, ' without will of the gods 
This chanced not, nor lawful was for thee 
To lead away Creiisa hence with thee ; 
The king of the high heaven suffereth it not. 
A long exile thou art assigned to bear, 
Long to furrow large space of stormy seas ; 
So shalt thou reach at last Hesperian land, 
Where Lydian Tiber with his gentle stream 
Mildly doth flow along the fruitful fields. 
There mirthful wealth, there kingdom is for thee, 
There a king's child prepared to be thy mate. 
For thy beloved Creiisa stint thy tears ; 



HENRY HOWARD. IO9 

For now shall I not see the proud abodes 

Of Myrmidons, nor yet of Dolopes ; 

Nor I, a Trojan lady and the wife 

Unto the son of Venus, the goddess, 

Shall go a slave to serve the Greekish dames, — 

Me here the god's great mother holds. 

And now farewell, and keep in father's breast 

The tender love of thy young son and mine/ " 

Surrey's poems were not published until ten years 
after his execution ; but the circumstance that not 
fewer than half-a-dozen editions appeared during the 
reign of Elizabeth attests their popularity in that age 
of literary advancement, and shows how greatly their 
author must have contributed to the perfection of Eng- 
lish verse. The torch he handed on to his successor 
in the course was kindled to a brighter and a clearer 
flame while it rested in his hands. 



XIV. 
GEORGE PUTTENHAM. 

IN the year 1589 there was published anonymously 
at London '' The Arte of English Poesie." The 
work was critical in its character, and its rules and 
principles were illustrated and enforced by abundant 
references to writers of that time. Among these writers 
of verse and prose, whose work is made the standard 
for others, the author quotes frequently from writings 
of his own that had been previously printed. This is 
the only clew that is anywhere given to the authorship 
of the volume. Strangely enough, this clew has proved 
of no help in tracing the work to its origin. Tradition, 
however, has not been equally uncommunicative on 
this point. A manuscript written by Edmund Bolton 
about 1605, and entitled " Hypercritica," contains this 
remark : — 

" Queen Elizabeth's verses, those which I have seen and 
read, some extant in the elegant, witty, and critical Book 
of the Art of English Poetry (the Work, as the Fame 
is) of one of her Gentlemen Pensioners, Puttenham, are 
princely as her prose." 

This is the earliest instance yet discovered of Put- 

tenham's name being connected with the book. In 

1 614 Richard Carew, writing of the " Excellencie of 

the English Tongue," says, *'You shall find that Sir 



GEORGE PUTTENHAM. \\\ 

Philip Sidney, Master Puttenham, Master Stainhurst, 
and divers more have made use how far we are within 
compass of a fair imagined possibility in that behalf" 
Neither the diligence nor the acuteness of subsequent 
students has brought to light anything to confirm or to 
disprove the opinion of Bolton and of Carew. The 
matter is one that can have only a curious interest for 
us, and a moderate interest at that. 

The last years of Elizabeth's reign abounded in 
similar works. From the time of Surrey and Wyatt to 
that of Shakspeare, English poets had been trying, 
their hands, not only upon every conceivable form of 
verse, but upon riddles, anagrams, and imitations of all 
sorts of geometrical figures as well. Puttenham was 
himself a trifler in this way, and it is easy to see that 
he is more occupied with the form of expression than 
with the idea to be conveyed. This point was noted 
by Sir John Harrington in answering the remarks of 
this art critic upon translations. "Though the poor 
gentleman," says Sir John, " laboreth greatly to prove, 
or rather to make, poetry an art, and reciteth as you 
may see, in the plural number, some pluralities of 
patterns and parcels of his own poetry, with divers 
pieces of partheniads and hymns in praise of the most 
praiseworthy, yet whatsoever he would prove by all 
these, sure in my poor opinion he doth prove nothing 
more plainly than that which M. Sidney and all the 
learneder sort that have written upon it do pronounce, 
namely, that it is a gift, and not an art, — I say he 
proveth it, because, making himself and so many 
others so cunning in the art, yet he showeth himself 
so slender a gift in it." 

Harrington's opinion is perfectly correct ; but 
though Puttenham had no gift of poesy, he had mas- 



1 1 2 WELLS OF ENGLLSH. 

tered the art of this species of composition. His book 
amounts to nothing as a contribution to English litera- 
ture, and yet it is of unusual value to the student of 
literary history. Not that we need assign any consider- 
able influence to this in shaping the work of the great 
writers who followed immediately upon its appearance. 
That would be absurd. The argument lies rather in 
the opposite direction. The book was evidently in- 
tended by the author as a means to enable him to 
make merchandise of his knowledge and his technical 
skill. In modern phrase, it was designed to meet a 
long-felt want. 

Puttenham professes to have written for the court, 
and not for the school ; for idlers and triflers in liter- 
ature, and not for authors. He says : " Our chief 
purpose herein is for the learning of ladies and young 
gentlewomen or idle courtiers, desirous to become 
skilful in their own mother-tongue, and for their private 
recreation to make now and then ditties of pleasure." 
He teaches the language, the form and the occasion of 
courtly compliment and ready repartee. In doing this 
he describes a hundred and nineteen different figures 
of speech. The properties and proprieties of these 
figures are set forth and illustrated. If we were to 
read Shakspeare, Ben Jonson, and the other great 
masters of English poetry who followed directly after 
the appearance of this book, with a view to noting 
the frequency with which these figures were employed, 
it might be a surprise to us to find how artistic, if not 
artificial, is the language of these poets. They were 
writing chiefly for the same class of people as were 
instructed by Puttenham. 

Among many other matters introduced in this treatise, 
the discussion on which has not yet been brought to 



GEORGE PUTTENHAM. 1 13 

any definite conclusion, is that of metrical quantity in 
English verse. A lengthy chapter is introduced to show 
" How, if all manner of sudden innovations were not 
very scandalous, especially in the laws of any language 
or art, the use of the Greek and Latin feet might be 
brought into our vulgar poesy, and with good grace 
enough." The argument employed upon this point is 
too long to be followed out here. We can only say 
that Puttenham claims the idea as original with him- 
self, but concludes that it is " somewhat too late to 
admit a new invention of feet and times that our fore- 
fathers never used nor never observed till this day." 
He did not anticipate that in our much later day the 
doctrine would be laid down for us that " independent 
of accent, quantity neither is nor ought to be neglected 
in our versification." Bulwer's treatment of the Odes 
of Horace may be referred to as highly successful at- 
tempts in this direction. The following Sapphic cer- 
tainly proves that temporal metre is possible in EngHsh : 

" O liquid streamlets to the main returning, 
Murmuring waters that adown the mountains 
Rush unobstructed, never in the ocean 
Hope to be tranquil." 

There is room for great improvement in our language, 
not only for the uses of the poet, but of the speaker as 
well, by blunting and dulHng the sharpness of accentu- 
ation ; and no other means appears so well suited to 
this end as the introduction of syllabic quantity. 

The points of prime interest in Puttenham to-day are 
his remarks upon literature in his own time, and his 
criticism of the work being done by his contempora- 
ries. As a matter of course he found his own age — 
one of the grandest in all the history of English litera- 
ture — nothing else but a weary succession of evil days. 
8 



114 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

It is with literature as with trade : the times are always 
at the very worst. Thomas Fuller said that he had 
never known the time when tradespeople were not 
complaining of dulness in the markets. Horace opens 
his First Satire with the same observation, only he 
makes it more general. It is not within reason that the 
author should find himself appreciated as he deserves. 

But the writer is not altogether consistent in his 
complainings. At one time he says : " Peradventure in 
this iron and malicious age of ours, princes are less 
delighted in it [the art of poetry] being over earnestly 
bent and affected to the affairs of empire and ambition. 
So as it is hard to find in these days of noblemen or 
gentlemen any good mathematician, or excellent musi- 
cian, or notable philosopher, or else a cunning poet, 
because we find few great princes much delighted in 
the same studies." This does not exactly correspond 
with what he had already written at the end of the 
first chapter, in addressing the queen : " But you 
(Madame) my most honored and gracious, if I should 
seem to offer you this my device for a discipHne and 
not a delight, I might well be reputed, of all others, 
the most arrogant and injurious; yourself being already, 
of any that I know in our time, the most excellent 
poet." Nor is it in keeping with what he elsewhere 
says, that "In Her Majesty's time that now is are 
sprung up another crew of courtly makers [poets], 
noblemen and gentlemen of Her Majesty's own ser- 
vants, who have written excellently well, as it would 
appear if their doings could be found out and made 
public with the rest." Odier notices of his own time 
are to the effect that it was one of great hterary 
activity. His lament of a want of patronage was but 
the groaning of a mercenary spirit. 



GEORGE PUTTENHAM. II5 

From the estimate which Puttenham expressed in 
the first chapter of the abihties of Elizabeth as a poet, 
we should not expect his criticism of her work to be 
unbiassed. The one single instance where he intro- 
duces a specimen of her composition is of more than 
literary interest. By one of the saddest of human in- 
cidents, it belongs to the political history of England. 
The "Sc. Q." mentioned is clearly Mary Queen of 
Scots. She was beheaded Feb. 8, 1587. This book 
was entered upon the register of the Stationers' Com- 
pany Nov. 9, 1588. The passage appears to have 
been written after the execution of Mary ; it belongs 
to the author's discussion of the figure exargasia. 

" I find no example that ever I could see, so well main- 
taining this figure in English metre as that ditty of Her 
Majesty's own making, passing sweet and harmonical, 
which figure being, as his very original name purporteth, 
the most beautiful of all others, it asketh in reason to be 
reserved for a last compliment, and deciphered by the art 
of a lady's pen, herself being the most gorgeous and 
beautiful, or rather beauty, of queens ; and this was the 
occasion our sovereign lady perceiving how by the Sc. Q. 
residence within this realm at so great liberty and ease as 
were scarce worthy of so great and dangerous a prisoner, 
bred secret factions among her people, and made many of 
her nobility inclined to favor her party, many of them 
desirous of innovation in the State ; some of them aspir- 
ing to greater fortune by her liberty and life. The queen 
our sovereign lady, to declare that she was nothing igno- 
rant of those secret favors, though she had long with 
great wisdom and patience dissembled it, writeth this 
ditty most sweet and sententious, not hiding from all 
such aspiring minds the danger of their ambition and 
disloyalty, which afterwards fell out most truly by the 
exemplary chastisement of sundry persons, who, in favor 
of the said Sc. Q., derogating from Her Majesty, sought to 



Il6 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

interrupt the quiet of the realm by many evil and unduti- 
ful practices. The ditty is as followeth : — 

•' ' The doubt of future foes exiles my present joy, 

And wit me warns to shun such snares as threaten mine 

annoy. 
For falsehood now doth flow, and subject faith doth ebb, 
Which would not be if reason ruled, or wisdom weaved the 

web. 
But clouds of toys untried do cloak aspiring minds, 
Which turn to rain of late repent, by course of changed 

winds ; 
The top of hope supposed, the root of ruth will be, 
And fruitless all their graffed wiles, as shortly ye shall see. 
Then dazzled eyes with pride, which great ambition blinds, 
Shall be unsealed by worthy wights, whose foresight false- 
hood finds. 
The daughter of debate, that she discord doth sow, 
Shall reap no gain where former rule hath taught still peace 

to grow. 
No sovereign-banished wight shall anchor in this port ; 
Our realm it brooks no stranger's force, — let them else- 
where resort. 
Our rusty swords with rest shall first his edge employ 
To poll their tops that seek such change and gape for joy.' " 

Aside from his evident partiality for the verse of the 
maiden queen, Puttenbam's estimate of his fellow-poets 
is fair in spirit and creditable to his discriminating 
judgment. We cannot, however, read his book with- 
out feeling that the poets of that day hampered them- 
selves unnecessarily with artificial rules of construction 
and of criticism, and that such books as this were de- 
signed to limit the production and the enjoyment of 
poetry to a privileged class. It was to be quickly 
shown after 1589 that genius was bound by no laws, 
nor monopolized by any circle of society. Shakspeare 
confirmed Sir John Harrington's dogma that poetry is 
a gift, not an art. 



i 



XV. 

SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 

1552-1618. 

SIR WALTER RALEIGH was a man of affairs 
rather than a man of letters. His life was a 
busy one until misfortune overtook him and prison 
walls restricted his activities. But whether his life was 
a free one, whether he was ranging the seas with the 
roving commission of a buccaneer bent upon adven- 
ture, discovery, or conquest, or whether the scope of 
his wandering was limited to pacing a prison yard, or 
even a prison cell, his unquiet mind never ceased to 
busy itself with plans of vast enterprise and of noble 
achievement for the honor of England and for the 
welfare of mankind. The student of Raleigh's Fife can- 
not fail to be struck with the brilliancy of that career ; 
and if the sentiment of hero-worship is easily awakened 
in his soul, there is risk that he, lost in admiration of 
gallant feats of arms and strokes of far-sighted policy, 
may overlook and forget the literary work of the worthy 
knight. Raleigh's reputation for daring adventure 
quite eclipses his fame as a writer. To use a familiar 
old English expression, we may say of him as a man of 
deeds, compared with himself as a man of words, " he 
stood in his own light." 

The story of that adventurous life has been told 
over and over again. It is a story that recalls to our 



I 1 8 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

minds what was noblest in character and conduct in 
the age of chivalry. It appeals to us here in America 
even more strongly perhaps than to Englishmen them- 
selves, because at so many points it relates to the 
discovery, the conquest, and the colonization of our 
country. We cannot well forget that Raleigh spent 
more than a quarter of a million sterling upon his 
favorite scheme of planting an English commonwealth 
in America. He received his first charter from the 
Crown as early as 1584, and in the same year Amadas 
and Barlow were despatched to occupy Virginia for Ra- 
leigh, who was styled " lord proprietary " of the country. 
The following year the colony of Roanoke was founded, 
to be abandoned the next summer. This was suc- 
ceeded by the second colony of Roanoke in 1587. 
One hundred and fifty householders constituted the 
"City of Raleigh," which remains only in name as the 
capital of North Carolina. Between 1589 and 1602 
Raleigh fitted out five expeditions at his own charge. 
He never ceased his efforts in this direction so long as 
he retained his liberty, and he never lost his faith in 
the destiny of America ; for even when his own efforts 
were ended, he wrote, " I shall yet live to see it an 
English nation." Of course his proprietary tide to 
Virginia escheated to the Crown by his attainder. The 
dates given above will show how far in advance of the 
time Raleigh's efforts were made, and they will also 
suggest how greatly these same efforts contributed 
finally to the successful planting of our colonies. 

The writings of Raleigh indicate that his views were 
broad and that his spirit was generous and liberal. 
He overlooked none of the advantages to trade, but 
the ruling motive to his schemes was a higher one than 
this. He regarded America as an asylum for those 



SIR WALTER RALEIGH. II9 

who might desire an escape from England. He enter- 
tained this view at a time when, under Elizabeth, there 
was room enough and work enough for all England's 
population at home. The reigns of James and of 
Charles made those boundaries narrow for both Prot- 
estants and Catholics. Colonists were then ready to 
remain abroad for a lifetime, instead of becoming home- 
sick and disheartened within a year. The colonies 
were then a blessing as a refuge ; and it seems a great 
pity that one who had planned and labored for them 
as Raleigh had done, should not have spent his riper 
years on this side the Atlantic, promoting their wel- 
fare, rather than to have been beheaded, as he was in 
1618. 

But Raleigh's view took in more than simply the 
political and the commercial advantage which England 
raight enjoy from planting colonies on this continent. 
He had spent some years of his youth in the Huguenot 
armies of France, and had imbibed a thorough hatred 
of all Cathohc rule and policy. It was a hard school, 
and some years later he showed by his treatment of 
Catholics in Ireland what lessons he had conned there- 
in. How this training may have warped his judgment, 
it is not for us to consider now. We cannot, however, 
overlook the fact that Raleigh saw more clearly than 
any other Englishman of his day what were the ambi- 
tious designs of Spain in regard to this continent, and 
he fully apprehended what results must follow if those 
designs were not thwarted. The expeditions that he 
sent across the Atlantic, and those that he himself led 
in person, partook of the character of crusades. Their 
purpose was to anticipate Spain on all our coast north 
of Fernandina, and to wrest from her hands so much 
as could be secured by conquest. It is certain that 



120 WELLS OF ENGLISLL 

the execution of Raleigh after fifteen years of imprison- 
ment was ordered for the purpose of allaying the vin- 
dictiveness of Spain at a time when a Spanish marriage 
was being negotiated by the English court. 

Raleigh's reputation as a writer rests largely upon 
his very ambitious magnwn opus^ his " History of the 
World." Only the first volume of this great undertak- 
ing was ever pubhshed. This was a folio of more than 
thirteen hundred closely printed pages. It was the 
work of part of its author's enforced leisure in the 
Tower. The task which he had set himself in this 
enterprise was too great even for a hopeless imprison- 
ment. This historical writing was varied, and perhaps 
reheved, by several shorter essays. One of these was 
entitled " The Prerogative of Parliament." It was 
written in the summer of 1615, and was dedicated to 
the king. A long imprisonment had removed the 
writer so completely from the scenes with which he 
was once familiar that he no longer understood the 
temper or the wishes of James. The book gave serious 
offence where the intention had been to please, and 
publication cum privilegio was denied. When the 
book did appear, ten years after its author's death, it 
was under a foreign imprint. 

The " Cabinet Council " was published by Milton in 
1658. It would be of interest if we could trace the 
manuscript copy of this from the time it left Raleigh's 
hands until it came into those of the poet. The cir- 
cumstances under which it appeared indicate that it 
had been valued for its republican sentiments. An- 
other treatise of Raleigh's is entitled " A Discourse of 
War." The closing paragraph of this has a deeply 
pathetic tone to the reader who reflects that it was 
written from the Tower. 



SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 121 

••■ It would be an unspeakable advantage, both to the 
public and private, if men would consider that great truth, 
that no man is wise or safe but he that is honest. All I 
have designed is peace to my country ; and may England 
enjoy that blessing when I shall have no more proportion 
in it than what my ashes make ! " 

It was Raleigh's good fortune — perhaps the happi- 
est fortune that befell him in all his hfe — that he was 
the intimate companion of Spenser in Ireland. He had 
the taste to appreciate the great beauty of the " Faerie 
Queene," and it is to his encouragement of the poet 
that our world of letters owes a debt of gratitude for 
the publication of this poem. For the counsel which 
he gave the gentle poet, Raleigh was well repaid in the 
dedication of the poem to himself. 

" To thee, that art the summer's nightingale, 

Thy Sovereign Goddess's most dear delight, 
Why do I send this rustic madrigal. 

That may thy tuneful ear unseason quite } 

Thou only fit this argument to write. 
In whose high thoughts Pleasure hath built her bower, 

And dainty Love learnt sweetly to indite." 

How these two kindred spirits — Raleigh, the man of 
arms, and Spenser, an under- secretary to the Lord 
Lieutenant — came together, and what grew out of the 
friendship then formed, is told in Spenser's " Colin 
Clout's Come Home again," pubhsbed in 1589. 

" I sat, as was my trade. 

Under the foot of Mole, that mountain hoar. 
Keeping my sheep among the cooly shade 

Of the green alders by the Mulla's shore ; 
There a strange shepherd chanced to find me out, — 

Whether allured by my pipe's delight. 
Whose pleasing sounds yshrilled far about, 

Or thither led by chance, I know not right : 



122 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

Whom when I asked from what place he came, 

And how he hight, himself he did ycleepe 
'The Shepherd of the Ocean ' by name. 

And said he came far from the main-sea deep ; 
He sitting me beside in that same shade, 

Provoked me to play some pleasant fit ; 
And, when he heard the music that I made, 

He found himself full greatly pleased at it. 
Yet, emuling my pipe, he took in hond 

My pipe, — before that emuled of many, — 
And played thereon (for well that skill he conned) ; 

Himself as skilful in that art as any. 
He piped, I sung ; and when he sung, I piped ; 

By change of turns, each making other merry j 
Neither envying other, nor envied, 

So piped we, until we both were weary. 

When thus our pipes we both had wearied well, 

Quoth he, and each an end of singing made, 
He gan to cast great liking to my lore, 

And great misliking to my luckless lot. 
That banished had myself, like wight forlore, 

Into that waste, where I was quite forgot. 
The which to leave, thenceforth he counselled me, 

Unmeet for man, in whom was aught regardful, 
And wend with him, his Cynthia to see. 

Whose grace was great, and bounty most rewardful." 

The Shepherd of the Ocean is Raleigh, and the 
Cynthia of these two poets is, of course, Queen Eliza- 
beth. Raleigh had written a long poem of this title 
— "Cynthia," — only fragments of which have come 
down to the present. In the conversation of the 
friendly shepherds, Raleigh says to Spenser : 

" And I, among the rest, of many least. 

Have on the Ocean charge to me assigned ; 
Where I will live or die at her behest, 

And serve and honor her with faithful mind." 

The author of the " Faerie Queene " was presented 
at court by Raleigh, and in 1590 the poem was pub- 



SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 



123 



lished. To that edition Sir Waiter contributed this 
commendatory sonnet : — 

" Meth ought I saw the grave where Laura lay, 

Within that temple where the vestal flame 
Was wont to burn ; and passing by that way 

To see that buried dust of living fame, 
Whose tomb fair Love, and fairer Virtue kept, 

All suddenly I saw the Fairy Queen : 
At whose approach the soul of Petrarch wept, 

And from thenceforth those graces were not seen ; 
For they this queen attended, in whose stead 

Oblivion laid him down on Laura's hearse. 
Hereat the hardest stones were seen to bleed, 

And groans of buried ghosts the heavens did pierce : 
Where Homer's sprite did tremble all for grief, 
And cursed the access of that celestial thief." 

The language of compliment could certainly go no 
farther in praise of any human achievement. In an- 
other composition, Raleigh urges his friend to take for 
the theme of his next song the praises of his royal 
mistress, instead of writing of the Fairy Queen : 

" Behold her princely mind aright, and write thy Queen anew. 
Meanwhile she shall perceive how far her virtues soar 
Above the reach of all that live, or such as wrote of yore : 
And thereby will excuse and favor thy good will ; 
Whose virtue cannot be expressed but by an angel's quill. 
By me no lines are loved, nor letters are of price. 
Of all that speak our English tongue but those of thy device." 

These passages from Spenser and from Raleigh 
open a wide vista down the fairest fields of Elizabethan 
literature. What the patrop says of his proteg^, and 
his manner of saying it, fully justifies the return made 
by Spenser in 1591, — 

" Full sweetly tempered is that muse of his." 

The lines of James Russell Lowell inscribed on the 
memorial window to Raleigh in St. Margaret's Church, 



124 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

Westminster, acknowledge in fitting terms the debt 
which Americans alone " Of all that speak our Eng- 
lish tongue " can feel. 

"The New World's sons, from England's breast we drew 
Such milk as bids remember whence we came ; 
Proud of her past, from which our future grew. 
This window we inscribe to Raleigh's name." 



XVI. 

GEORGE CHAPMAN. 

i557?-i634. 

CHAPMAN was a large figure among the Eng- 
lish writers of his time, and his time belongs to 
that splendid period known as the Elizabethan era. As 
in the case of Shakspeare, little is known of the hfe of 
this poet. Neither the date nor the place of his birth 
is to be fixed with certainty. His personal history is 
almost wholly matter of conjecture. Few writers or 
commentators upon his work have appeared, and even 
the scant labors of these have been little encouraged 
by an incurious public ; and yet we have competent 
testimony to the fact that Chapman has been a force 
in shaping our later literature. That well-known son- 
net of Keats's, " On First Looking into Chapman's 
Homer," is worth quoting for its bearing on this point, 
as well as for its own charming grace. 

" Much have I travelled in the realms of gold, 

And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; 

Round many western islands have I been 
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. 
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told 

That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne; 

Yet did I never breathe the pure serene 
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold. 



126 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies 
When a new planet swims into his ken ; 

Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes 
He stared at the Pacific, — and all his men 

Looked at each other with a wild surmise, — 
Silent upon a peak in Darien." 

It is true that the great measure of this praise be- 
longs to " deep-browed Homer." Chapman was but an 
acolyte ministering at an altar in front of that splendid 
temple of antiquity. But in Keats's day there were 
other translations of Homer into English, and it is 
likely that Chapman's was as little read as it is in our 
time. There is no necessary presumption to be drawn 
from the sonnet that Keats had not read Pope's Homer. 
Even then he would have had a revelation as of a new 
planet swimming into his ken when he " heard Chap- 
man speak out loud and bold." The two translations 
are as unlike each other as they are unlike the original ; 
and yet it by no means follows that Homer stands 
somewhere between them. Pope's work was justly 
characterized as " a pretty poem, but not Homer ; " and 
it is not unhkely, after all, that Pope felt flattered by 
that judgment. Nobody ever attributed prettiness to 
any of Chapman's work, — least of all to his translation 
of Homer. He had too true a conception of the mag- 
nificence of his original to belittle it with any petty or- 
namentation. No one ever heard Chapman speak 
otherwise than as Keats heard him "speak out loud 
and bold." This is exactly the manner of the 
man. 

But it is not to poets alone that Chapman's transla- 
tion has brought the revelation of a new sphere. Art 
as well as literature is indebted to his work. I cannot 
help thinking that Flaxman drew his ideas from that 
source. At any rate, his illustrations of Homer go 



GEORGE CHAPMAN. 12/ 

along with Chapman's text better than with any other. 
Although Mr. Ruskin has spoken with contempt of 
these illustrations, yet they have proved helpful to many 
in interpreting the poet. They show something of his 
vigor and strength, if they lack proportion and grace. 

Chapman's work of translating was not limited to 
Homer. He rendered into English Hesiod, Juvenal, 
Musaeus, and Petrarch, proving himself a scholar as 
compared with the men of his time or of our own. 
This work was at the time a patriotic service. It 
helped to keep England abreast of France in the great 
rivalry of the nations. 

Chapman as a writer and as a man is to be judged 
mainly from his original work. This was, after the 
fashion of his time, almost entirely dramatic. The 
reason for this is not in the natural bent of his genius 
and that of his fellow poets, but it is to be found in 
the fact that dramatic writing was the only kind of 
literature that then paid, and it is pretty certain that 
after having given so many years of his life to scholarly 
pursuits, the poet was forced to write for bread. One 
cannot help feeling that the practice by which he had 
acquired a strong and vigorous handhng of foreign sub- 
jects rather lessened his chances for success in original 
work. His plays were never successful on the stage, 
and in the library they have suffered neglect. It is 
only here and there at intervals that the reader of 
them comes upon passages deserving his study and his 
praise. 

The comedies of Chapman are not so much at fault 
in that, the stories upon which they are founded are 
trivial, as that they are unworthy. Some of these 
stories had been used by the Roman comedians, and 
were incapable of being told in such a way as to inter- 



128 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

est a more refined age. The characters are chiefly- 
borrowed. They were stock characters upon the stage 
of Plautus and Terence, and whoever has made their 
acquaintance there is Hkely to have acquired a famil- 
iarity with them such as breeds contempt. The student 
of EngUsh literature will find this field an unproductive 
one ; and yet there are spots that invite and reward 
a longer tarrying. 

Chapman is best in his comedies at points where he 
is least comic. There are serious passages in them 
that belong rather to tragedy, and, apart from the rest, 
are worthy of a master. The interview, for instance, 
between Strozza and his wife in the fourth act of " The 
Gentleman Usher " has been admired by every com- 
mentator upon Chapman's works. It is that scene 
which opens with the question of the anxious wife as 
she meets her wounded husband. 

" Cyn. How fares it now with my dear lord and husband? 
Stro. Come near me, wife ; I fare the better far 
For the sweet food of thy divine advice." 

The whole scene is elevated into a purer atmosphere 
than one breathes upon the ordinary level of English 
comedy. Had this been given a fitting place in trag- 
edy, it would have brought its author far more credit. 
As it is, it must atone for a good deal of dreariness by 
which it is surrounded. 

There is another passage in this comedy more char- 
acteristic of Chapman, and short enough to be quoted. 
It is strikingly Homeric, and displays the power which 
its author acquired by translating. 

" Thus as the lion lies before his den, 
Guarding his whelps, and streaks his careless limbs, 
And when the panther, fox, or wolf conies near, 
He never deigns to rise to fright them hence, 



GEORGE CHAPMAN. I2g 

But only puts forth one of his stern paws, 
And keeps his dear whelps safe as in a hutch, 
So I present his person and keep mine. 
Foxes, go by, I put my terror forth." 

It will have been inferred already that Chapman is 
seen to the best advantage in his tragedies. These are 
sufficiently original and unhackneyed in their plots to 
be of interest. They deal largely with French, Spanish, 
and German history of the poet's own time. They 
show an intimacy with foreign life and manners such as 
makes it altogether likely that Chapman had lived 
abroad. But they breathe everywhere a stanch pa- 
triotism and loyalty to England that make him a stout 
defender of the liberties and the honor of his country. 

The tragedies are composed with far more care than 
the comedies ; the speeches in particular are labored. 
The author here more frequently falls into rhyming. 
The influence of his work on Homer is seen in the use 
of his figures. Comparisons, in particular, are frequent, 
but, unlike those of his master, they are apt to be over- 
worked. As an illustration of what is meant, I quote 
from the fifth act of " Bussy d'Ambois " an example of 
this kind which ought to have been seen as a " warning 
fire " by the poet himself. 

" Oh, frail condition of strength, valor, virtue, 
In me, like warning fire upon the top 
Of some steep beacon, on a steeper hill. 
Made to express it ; like a falling star 
Silently glanced, that like a thunderbolt 
Looked to have struck and shook the firmament." 

Another passage, from the " Revenge of D'Ambois," 

is of special literary interest because of the reflection 

made in it upon the manner in which classical studies 

were pursued by the poet's contemporaries. The 

9 



I30 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

image of the critic's sinking beneath the surface over 
which he has safely sailed, with all his canvas spread, is 
more truly comic than anything to be met with in his 
comedies. 

"And as of Homer's verses many critics 
On those stand, of which Time's old moth hath eaten 
The first or last feet, and the perfect parts 
Of his unmatched poem sink beneath, 
"With upright gasping, and sloth dull as death, — 
So the unprofitable things of life. 
And those we cannot compass, we affect. 
All that doth profit and we have, neglect ; 
Like covetous and basely getting men. 
That, gathering much, use never what they keep, 
But for the least they lose extremely weep." 

One more example of Chapman at his best, and in 
which breathes the spirit of England in his generation, 
at a time just before the outbreak between the king 
and the Parhament, to show how little was the author 
spoiled by his foreign studies and residence abroad. 
It is from Byron's " Conspiracy." 

" I therefore mean to make him change the air, 
And send him farther from those Spanish vapors 
That still bear fighting sulphur in their breasts, 
To breathe awhile in temperate English air, 
Where lips are spiced with free and loyal counsels. 
Where policies are not ruinous, but saving, 
Wisdom is simple, valor righteous, 
Humane, and hating facts of brutish forces. 
And whose brave natures scorn the scoffs of France, 
The empty compliments of Italy, 
The any-way encroaching pride of Spain, 
And love men modest, hearty, just, and plain." 

Mention has already been made of the scant meas- 
ure of notice which has been given to Chapman by 
editors and commentators. With the exception of 



GEORGE chapman: 131 

Charles Lamb, few critics have seemed to think him 
worthy their study. The most satisfactory treatment 
of his work is that which it receives in the critical essay 
of the poet Swinburne. This is admirable, and forms 
the best introduction one can have to the study of the 
sturdy old Elizabethan poet. 



XVII. 

ROBERT GREENE. 

1 560-1 592. 

OF that numerous company of play-writers who 
were working alongside of Shakspeare, or were 
only a few years in advance of him, none will better 
repay some study than Robert Greene. The develop- 
ment of the English drama was by rapid stages. 
Among so many who were contending for popular 
favor at the same time, it is sometimes difficult to 
decide to whom any improvement should be credited. 
This task is made all the more hopeless from the cir- 
cumstance that the work of Shakspeare so far eclipsed 
all that had been done before that it is now difficult to 
recover much of the earlier and inferior work. In 
connection with this point it should be remarked that 
we cannot now determine to what extent, or in what 
parts, the great dramatist received aid from the genius 
or the industry of others. Certainly we may go so far 
as to suppose that he profited from the failures and the 
successes of those who were working in the same line 
with himself. If, as is commonly supposed, Shak- 
speare owed his learning rather to private reading than 
to the public universities, then it becomes obvious at 
once to any reader of Greene how greatly this writer 
may have contributed to the former's success. 



ROBERT GREENE. 133 

The time of Greene's birth is unknown. It is con- 
jecturally set down as 1560, — four years before Shak- 
speare was born. At all events, he had completed his 
studies at Cambridge in 1580, and went upon the Con- 
tinent for study and travel for the next three years. 
It is of interest to note that the greater part of this 
time was spent in Italy, as it indicates the estimation 
in which Italian letters were then held in England. 
The influence of this taste is seen throughout all our 
literature of that period. 

Upon his return home, in 1583, Greene took his 
degree of master of arts in course, and at once apphed 
himself to authorship. His private life, from that 
time on, the world would gladly forget, were it not 
that his vices clouded his genius, tainted his thought, 
and no doubt shortened his days. They have also had 
unusual effect in blackening his character. We must 
bear in mind that his time was followed very shortly 
by Puritan fashions of thought, when art counted for 
nothing at all, and character stood for everything. 
This sudden and radical revulsion in feeling will in a 
large degree explain why it is that we have so little of 
Greene's work still remaining. 

The author deserves to have it said in his behalf 
that his vices are known rather from specific confes- 
sions on his part than from his plays and poems. His 
life is commonly judged at the estimate he put upon 
it. In the year of his death, 1592, he wrote a pam- 
phlet entitled " A Groat's Worth of Wit bought with a 
Million of Repentance." It is from this that we invar- 
iably find impressions drawn relating to the author. It 
would be painful and can do us no good to follow him 
in his course of self-denunciation. Living in extreme 
poverty and " having nothing to pay but chalk," he is 



134 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

at last reduced to a single groat, over which he mor- 
alizes in this fashion : " Oh, now it is too late, too 
late to buy wit with thee ; and therefore will I see if 
I can sell to careless youth what I negligently forgot 
to buy." 

Quite likely Greene magnified his vices, and offset 
his virtuous confession with indulgence in the sin of 
lying. He was writing for bread to satisfy his hunger, 
and he knew well the popular taste. It is pretty cer- 
tain that cant was not unfamiliar to that age. Greene 
traded upon his knowledge of public vices as well as 
his own. In his own day he was known as the '' Coney- 
catcher," from the title of a pamphlet in which he 
exposed the villany of London. There is, moreover, 
some likelihood that his '' Repentance," as it is called, 
to which reference has been made, was not the only 
one. It has been commonly supposed that his earliest 
work was " Mamilia," dated 1583 ; but Mr. J. Payne 
Collier found an entry at Stationers' Hall where the 
name of Greene is interlined, and which attributes to 
him " a ballad " entitled " Youth, seeing all his ways so 
troublesome, abandoning Virtue and leaning to Vice, 
recalleth his former Follies with an inward Repentance." 
This entry was made 20th March, 1581. If really 
belonging to Greene, it may have had, even then, a 
personal apphcation. Everything goes to show that 
he was morally a scamp, and socially a scapegrace. 

Directly the author died, in 1592, his memory was 
assailed in " Foure Letters and certaine Sonnets 
especially touching Robert Greene and other Parties 
by him abused, 1592." The letters were variously 
signed, but were immediately credited to Gabriel 
Harvey, a writer of some note. They were scurrilous 
to a degree which modern literature knows nothing of. 



ROBERT GREENE. 1 35 

A single passage will show their character, and how 
rich they are in allusions: — 

" If Mother Hubbard in the vein of Chaucer happen 
to tell one canicular tale, Father Elderton and his son 
Greene, in the vein of Skelton or Scroggin, will counter- 
feit an hundred dogged fables, hbels, calumnies, slanders, 
lies for the whetstone, what not ; and most currishly snarl 
and bite where they should most kindly fawn and lick." 

Mr. Ward, in his " History of English Dramatic 
Literature/' speaking of these letters, says, — 

" His [Greene's] friends could say little in his de- 
fence ; the ablest pamphleteer among the dramatists, 
Nash, made the attempt, but seems to have faltered in 
making it. Yet there is truth and wisdom in the question 
which he puts to the unhappy poet's enemy, and with 
which this reference — for it shall be no more — to a 
sickening picture of sin and its punishment may be fitly 
concluded, ' Why should art answer for the infirmities of 
manners? ' " 

It need only be said that the task of replying to the 
attack of Harvey upon his friend was one every way 
suited to the temper and genius of Nash, and his effort 
in making a defence will disclose to the ordinary 
reader little faltering at the attempt. It is with evident 
rehsh that he engages in the work. He had only to 
pick up the missiles with which the field was covered, 
and hurl them back. The opening rather gives promise 
of vigor. 

" Out upon thee for an arrant dog-killer ! Strike a man 
when he is dead ! So hares may pull dead hons by the 
beards. Memorandu7n. I borrowed this sentence out 
of a play. The Theatre Poets' Hall hath many more 
such proverbs to persecute thee with because thou hast 
so scornfully derided their profession, and despitefully 
maligned honest sports." 



136 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

Greene's prose is of but little value except as a set- 
ting for some really dainty bits of verse. These show 
great skill in lyric composition. Their beauty cannot 
be seen except they be read with the context. So 
read, their beauty cannot be missed. Take, for in- 
stance, those familiar verses, so odd in their structure, 
in which are sung the praises of Samela. Without 
reading them in the author's "Arcadia/' where they 
belong, one would not take them for a description 
which one shepherd gives to another of a lady who 
has come among them. Its courtly phrase is litde in 
keeping with the talk of shepherds in real life ; but we 
will find no fault with the author that he refined that 
conversation to such a degree. 

Although it seems most likely that our literature is 
chiefly indebted to Greene for forms of lyric composi- 
tion which he invented or introduced, — forms which 
are more in favor to-day than they have been at any 
other time since that writer was living, — yet it is by his 
dramatic work that he will continue to be judged. In 
this his merits and his defects are strongly marked. 
The plays were written to be read rather than to be 
put upon the stage. Their versification is remarkable 
for its rhythm and its cadences. Greene's ear was 
peculiarly sensitive, and throughout his dramas, no 
matter what character may be speaking, whether it be 
in poetry or prose, the language shows the influence of 
assonance and resonance to an extent that proves 
wearisome. Another pecuharity of his work is what 
has been called "a vast excess of allusion." His 
allusions are chiefly mythological and of the classical 
order, as was the fashion of the time. We can see, 
in reading Greene, how Shakspeare might have picked 
up that acquaintance which his writings show with 
the classics from reading the literature of his own 



ROBERT GREENE. 137 

day. We can scarcely wonder at Greene's delighting 
in this work ; he did it well. A few lines in which 
Orlando speaks of Angelica's reputation for beauty will 
make this plain : — 

" Swift Fame hath sounded to our western seas 
The matchless beauty of Angelica. 
Fairer than was the nymph of Mercury, 
Who with bright Phoebus mounteth up his coach, 
And tracks Aurora in her silver steps, 
And sprinkles from the folding of her lap 
White lilies, roses, and sweet violets." 

Greene lacked — fatally lacked — the crowning 
faculty of dramatic genius, — the power to develop 
personal character. His princes talk like princes, it is 
true j but we cannot distinguish one prince from an- 
other. The suitors for the hand of Angelica, in his 
" Orlando Furioso," are as nearly alike as brothers, al- 
though they come from Egypt, Cuba, Mexico, France, 
and the islands of the sea, and there must have been 
at least five hundred years' difference in the time of 
their living. The poets showed little respect for the 
sober facts of history. 

As a more complete specimen of Greene's manner, 
this address of Orlando to Venus will serve. It has 
points in common with the opening to Lucretius's 
poem, "De Rerum Natura." 

"Fair queen of love, thou mistress of delight, 
Thou gladsome lamp that wait'st on Phoebe's train. 
Spreading thy kindness through the jarring orbs 
That in their union praise thy lasting powers, — 
Thou that hast stayed the fiery Phlegon's course, 
And made the coachman of the glorious wain 
To droop, in view of Daphne's excellence, — 
Fair pride of morn, sweet beauty of the even, 
Look on Orlando languishing in love ! " 



138 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

It would not help at all towards solving the prob- 
lems of life and character to quote from Greene any- 
thing that will bear quoting in these days, — anything 
like that well-known song beginning, — 

" Sweet are the thoughts that savor of content; 
The quiet mind is richer than a crown." 

Such purity of taste and sentiment as these would 
display harmonizes but ill with the author's conduct of 
his hfe. The question becomes more puzzling than 
was Samson's riddle of old, for that required only to 
find how " out of the strong came forth sweetness." 

Greene is commonly mentioned in connection with 
Shakspeare as having given the earliest literary notice 
we have of the great dramatist. He speaks of his 
rival contemptuously under the name of Shake scene, 
and he intimates that the latter had filched much from 
Greene's writings. It does not appear that this attack 
was noticed, unless it be in a song in " A Midsummer 
Night's Dream." In the controversy between Harvey 
and Nash, it comes out that the poet was famiharly 
called Greensleeves. The chorus, " Greensleeves was 
all my joy," etc., may have been plain enough in its 
day. 



XVIII. 

SAMUEL DANIEL. 

1 563-1619. 

DANIEL was the contemporary of Shakspeare. 
He was born in 1563, one year before the 
birth of the great dramatist, and his hfe extended to 
1 6 19, three years beyond the time when his fellow 
poet finished his career. There was enough of Dan- 
iel's work of the dramatic form to make it no difficult 
matter to compare it with that of the greatest master 
of the art, and to form an estimate of its relative value. 
It is surprising to find that, in their own day, this now 
obscure poet was thought to stand the better chance 
of the two of securing permanent fame, but if we may 
judge from notices of his work on the part of compe- 
tent critics, such must have been the case. Frequent 
mention of the poet is made by his fellow writers, and 
it is a pleasant thing to find all ^hese notices of the 
man so friendly, the invariable commendation of his 
work so hearty. It speaks well for his character and 
his conduct in a censorious age and community. Even 
so abusive a writer as Gabriel Harvey, whose inspira- 
tion seems to have been the spirit of rancor itself, says 
of Daniel and two or three others of his time that they 
"may haply find a thankful remembrance of their 
laudable travail." It would be running but little risk 



140 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

to say that, during their lifetime, Daniel enjoyed a re- 
putation in purely literary circles as much above that 
of Shakspeare as it is now inferior. This is not to be 
set down wholly against the fickleness of taste or the 
liability of judgment to error. The one poet selected 
subjects of temporary interest, and handled them in a 
manner peculiar to his time ; the other labored upon 
what is permanent in Nature and experience, and 
wrought after models of the severest purity. In view 
of the relative popularity of the two poets, we cannot 
easily avoid the conviction that, even in Shakspeare's 
own day, the drama was beginning lo lose caste among 
literary circles, and was fast hastening down to the 
place it occupied later under the Commonwealth. 

Daniel's reputation rests chiefly upon his sonnets, 
elegies, pastorals, and '' The History of the Civil War." 
His dramatic works are now so little read that a good 
edition of them will not be within reach until the com- 
pletion of the publication of his works, in four volumes, 
by the Spenserian Society. 

One of the earliest notices of Daniel, by the way, 
is to be met with in Spenser. It occurs in that curious 
pastoral entitled " Colin Clout 's Come Home Againe." 
In this the older poet is generous with his praise, and 
yet he is justly discriminating and critical. As this 
performance of Spenser's appeared, at the latest, as 
early as 1595, and at that date Daniel bad pubhshed 
only " The Complaint of Rosamond," various son- 
nets to Delia, and his "Tragedy of Cleopatra," the 
author of " The Faerie Queene " must have formed 
his opinion of the rising poet from these works. Cor- 
rect as the judgment was upon what he had already 
done, it could be justly passed upon all of Daniel's 
work. 



SAMUEL DANIEL. 141 

*' And there is a new shepherd late up sprong, 

The which doth all afore him far surpass ; 
Appearing well in that well-tuned song 

Which late he sang unto a scornful lass. 
Yet doth his trembling Muse but lowly fl}', 

As daring not too rashly mount on height, 
And doth her tender plumes as yet but try 

In love's soft lays and looser thoughts delight. 
Then rouse thy feathers quickly, Daniell, 

And to what course thou please thyself advance ; 
But most, meseems, thy accent will excel 

In tragic plaints and passionate mischance." 

The prophecy of the poet's earlier work, as inter- 
preted in the closing Hnes of this passage, was fulfilled 
to the letter. 

Daniel has been known from his day to the present 
as the '^ well-languaged." It is remarkable how little 
of verbal quaintness his writings show. Readers of his 
poetry need no glossary, as they do in the case of 
Spenser. Judged by his language, he would be as- 
signed to a period more than a hundred years later. 
This is a phenomenon in literary history. Had he 
been read and quoted as Shakspeare has been, then 
it would have been said that he helped to fix the lan- 
guage. On the contrary, he has been neglected by 
readers and by students of our literature. Our lan- 
guage has developed without his influence ; but the 
result shows that he had compassed its capabilities. 
Right to this point is the remark of Edmund Bolton 
in his " Criticism of Style before 1600 " : " The works 
of Samuel Daniel contained somewhat a flat, but yet 
withal a very pure and copious English, and words as 
warrantable as any man's, and fitter perhaps for prose 
than measure." Daniel's own remarks upon this sub- 
ject, with which he closes his " Defence of Rhyme," 



142 



WELLS OF ENGLISH. 



define exactly his position in regard to the language. 
The whole essay is of itself a fine example of English 
in the time of Elizabeth. 

" And I cannot but wonder at the strange presumption 
of some men, that dare so audaciously to introduce any 
whatsoever foreign words, be they never so strange ; and 
of themselves, as it were, without a parliament, without 
any consent or allowance, establish them as free denizens 
in our language. But tliis is but a character of that 
perpetual revolution which we see to be in all things that 
never remain the same, and we must herein be content to 
submit ourselves to the law of time, which in a few years 
will make all that for which we now contend, nothing!''' 

But it is as a poet that Daniel would have wished 
to be judged, for of his poetry he says, — 

" I adventured to bestow all my whole powers therein, 
perceiving it agrees so well, both with the complexion of 
the times and my own constitution, as I found not wherein 
I might better employ me." 

In his special art he possessed unusual taste. With 
labor and pains he strove for excellence of finish. His 
failures were chiefly due to the choice he made of 
subjects for poetic treatment. One who reads in his 
essay, " A Defence of Rhyme," what he has to say 
upon the constitution of the sonnet and the stanza in 
verse, will wonder how it happened that he wrote his 
"History of the Civil War" in a measure resembling 
the Spenserian stanza. He was well aware that these 
limited proportions and stated rests were suited to 
single independent thoughts and conceits ; he should 
have been equally convinced that they were unsuited 
to continuous narration. 

The stanza of Daniel contains one hne less than 



SAMUEL DANIEL. 1 43 

that of Spenser, and its arrangement of rhymes is sim- 
pler. His lines are also less inclined to form couplets 
and triplets. The overflow is from the natural rise of 
feeling. His cadences are musical, although in the 
management of parenthetical clauses in the closing line 
Spenser is unequalled. A comparison of the two poets 
will best show their peculiar merits. This, from the 
" Faerie Queene," is purely fanciful description : 

" The joyous birds, shrouded in cheerful shade, 
Their notes unto the voice attempered sweet; 
Th' angelical soft trembling voices made 
To th' instruments divine respondence meet; 
The silver sounding instruments did meet 
With the base murmur of the water's fall. 
The water's fall with difference discreet, 
Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call ; 
The gentle warbling wind low answered to all." 

With this compare a stanza from Daniel's " Civil 
War." The language is supposed to be that of Henry 
V. It represents well the vigor, the dignity, and the 
grace of its author. 

** Ungrateful times, that impiously neglect 

That worth that never times again shall show I 

What, merits all our toil no more respect ? 
Or else stands Idleness ashamed to know 

Those wondrous actions that do so object 
Blame to the wanton, sin unto the slow ? 

Can England see the best that she can boast 

Lie thus ungraced, undecked, and almost lost ? " 

This form of the stanza was kept throughout the 
eight books of the " Civil War." In another lengthy 
poem, entitled " Musophilus," the poet substituted, for 
the most part, a stanza formed from this by dropping 
the last two lines. He had previously to these tried, 
in the " Lament of Rosamond," a stanza of seven lines. 



144 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

It is to be noticed that in all the forms exceeding six 
lines the last two rhyme together, but not with any 
other. The same is the case with his sonnets. 

These sonnets are of the simplest form. They con- 
sist of three quatrains and a distich. They are ad- 
dressed to Delia ; but whether this be a real or ficti- 
tious person, the world has long since ceased to care 
to inquire. One will serve as an example. It may 
suggest to the reader Raleigh's song beginning, — 

" Go, soul, the body's guest ! " 

or Waller's later verse, — 

" Go, lovely rose ! " 

" Go, wailing Verse, the infants of my love, 

Minerva-like, brought forth without a mother, 
Present the image of the cares I prove, 

Witness your father's grief exceeds all other. 
Sigh out a story of her cruel deeds 

With interrupted accents of despair ; 
A monument that whosoever reads 

May justly praise and blame my loveless pair. 
Say her disdain hath dried up my blood, 

And starved you, in succors still denying; 
Press to her eyes, importune me some good ; 

Waken her sleeping pity with your crying. 
Knock at her hard heart; beg till ye have moved her, 
And tell th' unkind how dearly I have loved her." 

It is a matter that seems to have been over- 
looked by those who make Waller the first of Eng- 
lish Marinists that Daniel not only translated from the 
Italian poet, but shows in many ways the influence of 
that master. This is an important point in hterary his- 
tory, for it proves a more ready and frequent inter- 
course than is commonly supposed to have existed. 
But the same correction needs to be made in our 



SAMUEL DANIEL. 1 45 

ideas of the commerce of thought, as well as of goods, 
in all antiquity. One stanza from this translation will 
show where Waller and all the Marinists might have 
caught the grace of their finish at second-hand. They 
have scarcely improved upon this : — 

" Fair is the lily, fair 
The rose, of flowers the eye ! 
Both wither in the air, 
Their beauteous colors die. 
And so at length shall lie, 
Deprived of former grace, 
The lilies of thy breasts, the 
Roses of thy face." 

Just one snatch of a song from a pastoral of his 
must answer for Daniel's lyrics. Rarely has the grace 
or the melody of this been outdone, though Herrick 
has taken up the strain. 

" Love is a sickness full of woes, 
All remedies refusing, 
A plant that with most cutting grows, 
Most barren with best using. 
Why so ? 
More we enjoy it, more it dies ; 
If not enjoyed, it sighing cries, 
' Heigh ho ! ' " 



XIX. 

JOSHUA SYLVESTER. 

1563-1618. 

THE office of the translator is an humble one. 
It is his calling to make merchandise of the 
thoughts of men. In an open market he traffics pub- 
licly in ideas and sentiments. He can claim no place 
in any temple or at any altar of the Muses or Apollo ; 
he sacrifices rather to Hermes, the god of thieves and 
of pedlers. And yet his vocation is not without a cer- 
tain dignity, not without value that claims recogni- 
tion. Few writers in modern times have attained 
distinction in letters without now and then having tried 
their hand at this kind of work, and few of these have 
imported into their vernacular from foreign tongues 
without advantage to themselves and to the literature 
which they served. The translator can claim inspira- 
tion only at second hand ; but even this is better than 
none. He who interpreted the Delphic oracles, or 
put in order the fugitive leaves of the Sibyl, enjoyed 
the honors of the priesthood. The Pythia was of no 
account until she lost her head. 

No language was ever better suited to the uses of 
the translator than is the English. Its affinities with 
the Gothic of the North and the Latin of the South 
give it unusual aptitude to express the subtleties of 
thought and sentiment peculiar to those people. There 



JOSHUA SYLVESTER. 1 47 

is scarcely a construction in any of these languages 
that cannot be closely imitated, if not reproduced, in 
English. Again, our varied relationships are such as 
to induce a quick sensibility on our part to the moods 
and fancies which give color and tone to the literature 
of a people. In our generous pillaging and wholesale 
thieving, we have complimented highly the work of 
our neighbors. 

As an instance of the success which formerly waited 
upon the work of the translator one may review the old 
folio volume of the writings of Joshua Sylvester. It 
was published at London in 162 1, and is almost wholly 
made up of the writer's translation of a then recent 
French poem, the " Days and Weeks " of Du Bartas. 
This work was accompanied by the encomiastic tributes 
in verse of Ben Jonson, Daniel, Davis, Hall, Vicars, 
and other poets of the time. The first of these be- 
stowed upon the author a great deal of such praise 
as this, — 

" Thine the original ; and France shall boast 
No more the maiden glories she has lost." 

In his " Address to the Reader," the printer of the 
volume, Humfrey Lownes, says : '' The name of Joshua 
Sylvester is garland enough to hang before this doore, — 
a name worthily dear to the present age and to pos- 
terity." The work itself was one far more likely to be 
produced in Puritan England than in romantic France. 
It opens with a highly poetic account of the creation 
and of the fall, and continues through the law and the 
prophecies to the fulfilment of these in the coming of 
the Messiah. This poetic treatment of Hebrew thought 
and experience was admirably adapted to the English 
taste of that period, and it is not at all surprising that 



148 WELLS OF ENGLLSH. 

the translation of it was received with marks of especial 
favor. At this day it would have little of its original 
interest, were it not for its influence upon later English 
literature. 

Humfrey Lownes had his printing-house on Bread- 
street Hill, London, at the time the folio edition of 
Sylvester's works was published, and the father of John 
Milton was his near neighbor and intimate friend. It 
is matter of tradition that the elder Milton was often 
consulted in regard to the work. We may be sure the 
volume was a familiar and valued one in that Puritan 
home. Milton the poet was then thirteen years of age, 
and, living at his father's, such poetry as the " Days 
and Weeks " could not fail to impress with its bold 
imagery and lofty conceptions his youthful mind. It 
detracts not at all from the merit of " Paradise Lost," 
nor from the glory of its author, that students of this 
poem have detected and traced these impressions in 
its lines. Some of this critical work may be found in 
Hayley's " Conjectures on the Origin of Paradise Lost." 
In the year 1800 Henry Dunster published a small and 
not very satisfactory book on the same subject. The 
examination made by Dunster is ahuost wholly ver- 
bal, and the comparison is pretty nearly limited to 
" Comus." A collation of " Paradise Lost " and of 
" Paradise Regained " with " Days and Weeks " with 
respect of subject-matter would be of greater value. 
Mr. David Masson, in his essay introductory to an 
edition of Milton, says "That Sylvester's Du Bartas 
had been familiar to him from his childhood, is quite 
certain." It seems altogether likely that the poet read 
the work before the folio edition, for it appeared in 
quarto form in 16 13, when he was but five years old, 
and the first part of it had been printed in 1598, before 



JOSHUA SYLVESTER. 1 49 

he was born. If the claims which have been made for 
the influence of this translation upon our literature are 
well founded, then the hand that made it is entitled to 
no small share of honor. 

But whatever may be the merit of Sylvester as an 
interpreter of others' thoughts, his own original work 
will well repay some study. His name has been so 
completely overshadowed by the greater names of the 
generation to which he belonged that it is now seldom 
met. His complete works, however, comprise pieces 
in verse which show much skill in the art of poetic 
expression, even though they be lacking in the higher 
quality of invention. This dehcacy of touch, this grace 
and propriety of* handling, the poet had doubtlessly 
acquired in the practice of translating. The principles 
of the arts of poetry and of criticism are more surely 
and easily drawn from several different schools than 
they are developed in any one. As a specimen of 
Sylvester's manner, two stanzas from a little poem of 
his will answer well. Their subject is one upon which 
poets of that day frequently tried their hand, so that it 
is easy to compare his work with that of others, and 
judge fairly of his success. 

" I weigh not fortune's frown or smile, 

I joy not much in earthly joys, 
I seek not state, I seek not style, 

I am not fond of fancy's toys ; 
I rest so pleased with what I have, 
I wish no more, no more I crave. 



* I feign not friendship where I hate, 
I fawn not on the great in show ; 
I prize, I praise a mean estate 

Neither too lofty nor too low; 
This, this is all my choice, my cheer, 
A mind content, a conscience clear." 



150 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

These lines show considerable tact in the manage- 
ment of the commonplaces of poetry. With the itera- 
tion of sentiment will be found sufficient variety and 
smoothness of expression to relieve of weariness. The 
following sonnet will exhibit to even better advantage 
this poet's sustained power of thought and technical 
skill of execution : — 

" Were I as base as is the lowly plain, 

And you, my love, as high as heavens above, 
Yet should the thoughts of me, your humble swain, 

Ascend to heaven in honor of my love. 
Were I as high as heaven above the plain, 

And you, my love, as humble and as low 
As are the deepest bottoms of the main, 

Wheresoe'er you were, with you my thoughts should go. 
Were you the earth, dear love, and I the skies, 

My love should shine on you like to the sun. 
And look upon you with ten thousand eyes. 

Till heaven waxed blind, and till the world were done. 
Wheresoe'er I am, below or else above you, 
Wheresoe'er you are, my heart shall truly love you." 

These lines, it is true, seem more like a task set to 
practise the hand in poetic composition than as the 
spontaneous outpouring of a genuine inspiration ; but 
yet from a Hterary point of view they have much to 
recommend them. They show the skill belonging to 
the accomphshed translator. 



XX. 

MICHAEL DRAYTON. 

1563-1645. 

IT is a very pleasant thing to meet with an Engh'sh 
poet who has none but friendly words for his 
fellow poets, and who is himself in turn always spoken 
of with affection and respect. Of the Elizabethan 
poets, Drayton enjoyed a large measure of popularity. 
His name appears attached to many of those com- 
mendatory verses which the publishers of tliat day 
were in the habit of prefixing to editions, not only of 
poems, but of prose works issued at that time. In 
these and in his poetical epistles to his literary friends, 
the kindly nature of the man is sufficiently apparent. 
Even Ben Jonson, who manifested so litde readiness to 
be pleased, had the grace to admit to Drummond that 
the " Poly-Olbion " of Drayton was a success, so far as 
the poet had gone. 

This general favor was due both to the skill of the 
author and to the choice of subjects which he handled. 
The poet was thoroughly English in sentiment and 
manner. He belonged to the England of his day, and 
that day was one in which his .country was making the 
most heroic chapter of her history. The enterprises 
then on foot were the themes of his most stirring lines. 
His ode, " To the Virginian Voyage," deserves to be 
read by every American, not only for its spirited ap- 
peal, but for the light it sheds upon English sentiment 



152 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

towards colonization on these shores in the early years 
of the seventeenth century. Its address is sufficiently 
bold and animated. 

" You brave, heroic minds, 
Worthy your country's name. 

That honor still pursue, 

Go and subdue, 
Whilst loitering hinds 
Lurk here at home with shame." 

With the prophetic vision of the bard, Drayton looks 
forward to an age which we may assume has already 
dawned, and he discloses to the emigrant a future 
such as would soften the hardships of colonial life : 

" And in regions far 
Such heroes bring you forth 

As those from whom we came; 

And plant our name 
Under that star 
Not known unto our North. 

"And as there plenty grows 
Of laurel everywhere, 

Apollo's sacred tree. 

You it may see 
A poet's brows 
To crown that may sing there." 

A taste of the quality of Drayton's lyric verse cannot 
but excite a longing for more ; and it is this sort of 
composition in particular that claims the attention of 
students of Enghsh metres. The sample given is 
enough to show that long before Edmund Waller pub- 
lished anything, — indeed, in the very year of his birth, 
1605, — the capabilities of our language were being 
made apparent. It was in this year that the ^' Ballad 
of Agincourt " was pubKshed. The fire of that piece 
has rarely been equalled. It flares and flashes on the 



MICHAEL DRAYTON. 1 53 

scene ; it snaps and crackles in the words. Tlie meas- 
ure has been made familiar by Longfellow ; but the 
merit of that earlier performance cannot be appreciated 
unless it be read in the spirit of the age in which it 
was written. As a specimen of imitative language it 
would not be easy to point the reader to anything more 
satisfactory than this stanza : — 

" They now to fight are gone ; 
Armor on armor shone, 
Drum now to drum did groan, — 

To hear was wonder. 
That with the cries they make 
The very earth did shake ; 
Trumpet to trumpet spake, 

Thunder to thunder." 

The exultant feeling which palpitates through the lines 
of this patriotic ballad thrills with a burst of passion in 
the closing stanza : — 

" Upon Saint Crispin's day 
Fought was this noble fray, 
Which fame did not delay 
To England to carry ; 
Oh, when shall English men 
With such acts fill a pen. 
Or England breed again 
• Such a King Harry ! " 

It was on a much slenderer reed than this that 
Drayton piped soft and low the easy-going measures of 
" Dowsabel." The metre in this case just suits the 
light, springing step of the happy girl as, — 

" This maiden in a morn betime 
Went forth when May was in the prime 

To get sweet cettywall. 
The honeysuckle, the Sherlock, 
The lily, and the lady-smock, 

To deck her summer hall." 



154 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

These lighter strains of his Muse are really the best 
of all the poet's work ; but they are read to-day, if they 
are read at all, with little appreciation of their beauty. 
In this matter-of-fact age mankind has far outlived the 
faith of unreason. The tales of Robin Hood, of Tuck 
the merry friar, and of Much the Miller, have htde 
interest to us, but they were the delight of Drayton 
and of his readers. No English poet has excelled him 
in painting the scenes of fairyland ; he describes the 
situation of Oberon's palace in the air, — 

" And somewhat southward toward the noon, 
Whence lies a way up to the moon, 
And thence the faerie can as soon 
Pass to the earth below it." 

He tells, too, of a humorous incident which happened 
once upon a time in the court of Oberon and Queen 
Mab, with as lively a fancy as that which produced " A 
Midsummer Night's Dream." 

This bent of the poet's genius is of interest to us in 
view of the great amount of historical writing which he 
did in verse. We may feel pretty confident that his 
heart was not in this latter work as it was in the play- 
ful sporting of his fancy. The same thing is to be 
noticed in the case of several of his fellow poets. 
Samuel Daniel wasted much of his strength in the 
same way. Writers of such fine poetic instinct must 
have felt how little suited was continuous history to 
poetic treatment; and yet they set themselves to 
work at the task with heroic fortitude. It is no more 
than fair to conclude that they were urged to the tak- 
ing up of such themes as a duty by the sentiment of 
the times. A patriotic regard for the honor of their 
country acted as an inspiration. The taste of readers 



MICHAEL DRAYTON. 1 55 

overruled the judgment of the poet. The born singer 
was made a literary drudge. 

"The Barons' Wars " of Drayton are an example of 
painstaking composition, in which the skill and talents 
of the writer are not equal to the task of giving the work 
any absorbing interest. It is no discredit to the poet 
that he failed. A recital must have something more 
for its groundwork than the mere facts of history fur- 
nish, or human fancy can invent, to give interest to a 
poem of one unvarying measure prolonged to six books 
of from seventy-five to a hundred cantos each. We 
must, however, conclude that the taste of that period 
was quite different from that of to-day. 

His sturdy loyalty to England led Drayton to under- 
take, not only the history of his country, but a descrip- 
tion of it as well. His chief work, and one which 
bears the mark of having been a labor of love, the 
" Poly-Olbion," may be called a practical itinerary of 
the island. In its descriptive portions the poem dis- 
plays something of that feeling for Nature which has 
become a delightful characteristic of more recent liter- 
ature. But the historical bias of the past predominates. 
His taste was that of the antiquary. What he reports 
the Welland as saying, he might have applied to 
himself : — 

" Antiquity I love ; nor by the world's despite 
I cannot be removed from that my dear delight." 

Over the hills and along by the streams through the 
meadows he rambles at will, singing the praises of the 
rural scene, of the virtues of its inhabitants, or recount- 
ing some old legend of the place, or telling some 
earlier gossip of the neighborhood. The scope of the 
work enabled the poet to make of it an omnium 
gatherum. It connects English history, fable, and 



156 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

myth with the spot where it sprang up and grew. The 
work done by Drayton has no doubt saved more 
recent poets much groping among the obscure, if not 
sombre, scenes of their nation's early Hfe. The reader 
can scarcely help the consciousness that Tennyson and 
Swinburne have been this way before him. 

The poem consists of thirty " songs," as the author 
calls them, each devoted to some section of the 
country. It is to be noticed that the excursions of 
the author are determined largely by the courses of the 
rivers. A portion of one of the " arguments " to these 
songs will show the vagrant character of the whole : 

*' With Cardigan the muse proceeds, 
And tells what rare things Tivy breeds ; 
Next proud Rypillimon she plys, 
Where Severn, Wye, and RydoU rise. 
With Severn she along doth go, 
Her metamorphosis to show, 
And makes the wandering Wye declaim 
In honor of the British name." 

In connection with his account of the Severn the 
poet touches briefly upon the story of Madoc, brother 
to David ap Owen, Prince of Wales, who was said by 
the Welsh to have visited this continent about the 
year 1170. 

" This brave adventurous youth, in hot pursuit of fame. 
With such as his great spirit did with high deeds inflame, 
Put forth his well-rigged fleet to seek him foreign ground, 
And sailed west so lorg until that world he found, 
To Christians then unknown, save this adventurous crew, 
Long ere Columbus lived, or it Vespucius knew." 

In the nineteenth song, — 

" When Stour, with Orwell's aid, prefers 
Our British brave sea-voyagers," 



MICHAEL DRAYTON. 1 57 

the poet names these worthies, with some mention of 
their several exploits. The catalogue is too long 
by far to be given here, but it is of interest to all 
American readers, since it relates to the time of 
English discovery and early colonization on this coast. 
A few of his allusions will answer our present pur- 
pose. Charles Leigh, a London merchant, visited 
Cape Breton in 1597. 

" Nor should Fame speak her loud'st of Love, she could not lie, 
Who in Virginia left with the English colony. 
Himself so bravely bore amongst our people there 
That him they only loved, when others they did fear. 
Then he who favored still such high attempts as these, 
Rawleigh, whose reading made him skilled in all the seas, 
Embarked his worthy self and his adventurous crew. 
And with a prosperous sail to those fair countries flew. 
So Leigh Cape Breton saw, and Ramea's isles again, 
As Thompson undertook the voyage to New Spain." 

A better idea of the poetic quality of the "Poly- 
Olbion " will be gained from reading a portion of the 
author's invocation, or address, to Charnwood. In 
such passages the poet is particularly happy in his 
work, and apparently happy in the company of the 
fair spirits with which his lively fancy peoples the 
scene : — 

" O Charnwood, be thou called the choicest of thy kind : 
The like in any place what flood hath happed to find ? 
No tract in all this isle, the proudest let her be, 
Can show a sylvan nymph for beauty like to thee ; 
The satyrs and the fauns by Dian set to keep 
Rough hills and forest holts were sadly seen to weep 
When thy high-palmed harts, the sport of bows and hounds. 
By gripple borderers' hands were banished thy grounds. 
The dryads that were wont about thy lawns to rove. 
To trip from wood to wood, and scud from grove to grove, 



158 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

On Sharpley that were seen, and Cadman's aged rocks, 
Against the rising sun to braid their silver locks, 
And with the harmless elves, on healthy Bardon's height, 
By Cynthia's colder beams to play them night by night, 
Exiled their sweet abode, to poor bare commons fled, 
They with the oaks that lived, now with the oaks are dead. 



XXI. 

CYRIL TOURNEUR. 
15 

THE name of Tourneur — or Turner, as it would 
be written now — has never been one to con- 
jure with. It has gathered nothing of tradition in the 
course of centuries, — indeed, it has barely survived. 
This fortune it owes to the circumstance of having 
been associated with other more enduring names 
rather than to any potency or magic of its own. Tour- 
neur had a more or less important part in those joint 
literary undertakings which kept the stage supplied 
with novelties in the early years of the seventeenth 
century. It is in connection with the more buoyant 
names of the old dramatists that his name has floated 
down the current of time. It is as the literary co- 
worker of Webster, Marston, and others that the stu- 
dent becomes acquainted with Tourneur. When he 
tries to make out the parts of the work that came from 
the several hands, he finds the task to be not an easy 
one. To gather any knowledge of Tourneur as a 
writer from the plays he helped to produce, is almost 
impossible. 

This leads to a consideration of combined author- 
ship, which has recently come in vogue again. It is 
rare that co-operative labor has been more successfully 
employed than it was in the production of dramas 



l60 WELLS OF ENGLISH, 

through the associated efforts of playwrights. It is a 
matter of tradition rather than of record, it is true, 
that so large a number of the plays which go under the 
name of Webster, of Marston, or even of Ben Jonson, 
were largely the work of other hands. The success 
with which style was cultivated in those days enabled 
inferior talent to imitate very closely the hand of the 
master. In this way some very clever writers became 
humble contributors to an overshadowing reputation. 
The practice was continued down to the time of Pope, 
who gave out, as it is reported, entire books of the 
" Odyssey " to different hands ; and the work was so 
executed that few readers of his Homer now discover 
any variation in its style or quality. 

In the case of co-operative dramatic work, such as 
Tourneur was engaged upon more or less of his time, 
it was perfectly natural that the result of the work 
should be credited to the most prominent or the most 
popular member of the guild. It is to be feared that 
in this mutual toil there was very little profit-sharing, 
either of money returns or of reputation. The prin- 
ciple upon which a settlement of claims was reached 
appears to have been the convenient mathematical 
axiom, " The greater includes the less." There was no 
doubt frequent appHcation of the text, " The disciple 
is not above his master." A sense of justice, if noth- 
ing else, leads the reader of the present to wish that he 
could assign to the several authors the part each had 
in the joint production. 

As we cannot hope to trace the hand of Tourneur 
in those works to whose production he is reported to 
have contributed in some part, we are all the more 
thankful for the two plays which belong to him alone. 
These have been edited by Mr. J. C. Collins within a 



CYRIL TO URN EUR. l6l 

few years past ; and with the Introduction written by 
that editor, they give about all the information that can 
be had of this author. The plays were first printed in 
1607 and 1608. They may have been performed for 
some time before they were printed, as it was the 
usage then to keep plays out of the hands of the 
printers, and in this way out of the hands of the pubhc, 
as long as possible. It is therefore reasonable to 
assign their production to the opening years of the 
seventeenth centuryo Fortunately, these plays are of 
a character to reflect the thought of the period to which 
they belong, — fortunately, for there is no period in our 
literary history which needs more to be thoroughly 
understood. 

We are apt to regard English freethinking as an im- 
portation from the Continent, and as belonging to the 
eighteenth century. It is associated with the writings 
of Shaftesbury and of Bolingbroke. It has been made 
more conspicuous and much more familiar to most 
readers in the later and opposing works of Paley and 
the author of ''The Analogy of Revealed Rehgion 
to the Constitution and the Course of Nature." An 
examination of Tourneur's plays, particularly of the 
earlier one, will show a good deal of thought along 
lines which were afterwards followed by the free- 
thinkers. However worthless for the purposes of the 
stage may be ''The Atheist's Tragedy," it is not with- 
out its interest and value to any reader who would 
trace the growth of opinions, and who would under- 
stand the tone of English thought at the time when the 
great dramatists were working. A few short extracts 
will make this point plain. The hero of the play is 
D'Amville, a nobleman who is led, all too easily for us 
to respect his intellect, to doubt and to disbeheve all 
II 



1 62 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

teachings of religion. One cannot overlook the 
parallel between this infidelity in the higher circles and 
that fashionable scepticism of the following century. 
D'Amville's first interview with a low-bred person 
shows that atheism was promulgated as a dogma 
among the lower classes. The gist of the conference 
is in the following lines : — 

" Borrachio. There 's nothing in a man above 
His nature ; if there were, considering 't is 
His being's excellency, 't would not yield 
To Nature's weakness. 

D'A?nviUe. Then if death casts up 

Our total sum of joy and happiness, 
Let me have all my senses feasted in 
Th' abundant fulness of delight at once, 
And with a sweet, insensible increase 
Of pleasing surfeit, melt mto my dust." 

This play has been pronounced faulty in represent- 
ing D'Amville as too easily led into scepticism. May 
it not be the case that the poet found the gentility of 
his time strongly inclined towards atheistic principles, 
and easily impelled in that direction ? However that 
may be, the predisposing cause is such as arrests the 
attention of the reader at once. It was necessary to 
have a Puritan on the stage to amuse the groundlings. 
The author makes this Puritan, with his excess of piety, 
or cant, the occasion of the nobleman's losing faith. 
No critic, looking at the composition of human nature, 
can pronounce this an unnatural joining of cause and 
effect. It is one of the severest and most striking 
comments upon Puritanism to be found in contem- 
porary literature. Here we see how D'Amville was im- 
pressed by the conversation of the Puritan who had 
just left the stage : — 



CYRIL TOURNEUR. 1 63 

" D'Am. Borrachio, didst precisely note this man ? 

Bor. His own profession would report him pure. 

D'Ant. And seems to know if any benefit 
Arises of religion after death. 
Yet but compare's profession with his life, — 
They so directly contradict themselves 
As if the end of his instructions were 
But to direct the world from sin, that he 
More easily might engross it to himself. 
By that I am confirmed an atheist." 

If D'Amville is to be considered as typical of the 
upper-class gentry of the day ; if his pliant and over- 
fastidious temper represents the bearing of the intelli- 
gent classes towards the more serious questions of life 
and duty, — does not " The Atheist's Tragedy " help us 
the better to understand such a play as "Hamlet"? 
It may be objected to this that D'Amville is a French- 
man. The answer to this will be simply to remind 
one that Hamlet was a Dane, and that in dealing with 
generalities the dramatist presents particular examples. 
Without dwelling longer on this view of the matter, 
here is another passage which connects the atheism of 
that day with certain materialistic notions of the present. 
After the execution of his nephew, the atheist begs 
of the judges the dead body, that he may upon dissec- 
tion discover, if possible, the physiological grounds 
of nobility of character. 

** D' Am. A boon, my lords, I beg a boon. 

First Judge. What 's that, my lord ? 

D'Am. His body, when 'tis dead, 

For an anatomy. 

Second Judge. For what, my lord ? 

D'Atn. Your understanding still comes short of mine. 
I would find out by his anatomy 
What thing there is in nature more exact 
Than in the constitution of myself. 
Methinks my parts and my dimensions are 



1 64 WELLS OF ENGLLSH. 

As many, as large, as well composed as his ; 
And yet in me the resolution wants 
To die with that assurance as he does. 
The cause of that in his anatomy 
I would find out." 

Tourneur's Puritan is but a caricature, and most likely 
that was what the author designed. Still, the picture has 
its value. It must have been drawn so as to be easily 
recognized. He is given the offensive name of Snuffe, 
from contempt, and apparently to ridicule the practice 
of the Puritan of humbly referring to himself as a 
candle of the Lord. The meanness of this character 
is brought out in an examination before the court : 

" Second Judge. Now, Monsieur Snuffe ! a man of your 
profession 
Found in a place of such impiety ! 

Snuffe. I grant you, the place is full of impurity. So much 
the more need of instruction and reformation. The purpose 
that carried me thither was with the spirit of conversion to 
purify their uncleanness ; and I hope your Lordship will say 
the law cannot take hold of me for that. 

First Judge. No, sir, it cannot ; but yet give me leave 
To tell you that I hold your wary answer 
Rather premeditated for excuse, 
Than spoken out of a religious purpose. 
Where took you your degree of scholarship } 

Snuffe. I am no scholar, my lord. To speak the truth, 
sincere truth, I am Snuffe, the tallow-chandler. 

Second Judge. How comes your habit to be altered thus.-* 

Sniffe. My Lord Belforest, taking a delight in the clean- 
ness of my conversation, withdrew me from that unclean life, 
and put me in a garment fit for his society and my present 
profession. 

First Judge. His Lordship did but paint a rotten post, 
Or cover foulness fairly. Monsieur Snuffe, 
Back to your candle-making ! You may give 
The world more light with that, than either with 
Instruction or the example of your life. 

Snuffe. Thus the Snuffe is put out." 



CYRIL TO URN EUR. 1 65 

Of the two plays which we have as the authenticated 
work of Tourneur, " The Revenger's Tragedy " is the 
one that is most commended by critics for its dramatic 
interest and the vigor of its language. All this may be 
admitted, and yet the reader at this day may find that 
" The Atheist's Tragedy " helps to a far better insight 
into the habits of thought and the tone of feeling in 
England, at the time of its production, than Vv^ould a 
dozen plays hke its companion piece. As a specimen 
of this author at his best may be taken the announce- 
ment of the death of Charlemont, made by Borrachio. 
The want of propriety in putting such poetic language 
into the mouth of a blackguard, who was at that very- 
time telling a falsehood, need not take away anything 
from the elegance and beauty of the passage. 

" Walking next day upon the fatal shore. 
Among the slaughtered bodies of their men, 
Which the full-stomached sea had cast upon 
The sands, 'twas my unhappy chance to light 
Upon a face whose favor, when it lived, 
My astonished mind informed me I had seen. 
He lay in 's armor as if that had been 
His coffin ; and the weeping sea like one 
Whose milder temper doth lament the death 
Of him whom in his rage he slew, runs up 
The shore, embraces him, kisses his cheeks. 
Goes back again, and forces up the sands 
To bury him, and every time it parts. 
Sheds tears upon him, till at last (as if 
It could no more endure to see the man 
Whom it had slain, yet loth to leave him) with 
A kind of unresolved, unwilling pace. 
Winding her waves one in another, like 
A man that folds his arms or wrings his hands 
For grief, ebbed from the body, and descends 
As if it would sink down into the earth. 
And hide itself for shame of such a deed." 



XXII. 

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE. 

1564?-! 593- 

THE name of Marlowe comes earliest in the list of 
English dramatists. It comes little short of 
standing among the foremost of these for excellence as 
well. In the thirty years of the poet's life, betv/een 
1564 and 1593, only the last ten years of which could 
have been given to work, he produced what should 
have secured a lasting reputation. But the reputation 
gained has suffered both justly and unjustly. It has 
suffered justly from having the author's original work 
associated with translations which Marlowe should 
never have undertaken, or if he made these simply as 
exercises by which to acquire skill in versification, he 
should have kept them from the press. His selections 
were from the loosest passages of Ovid, and the trans- 
lator often went wickedly astray to give a worse mean- 
ing to what was already too bad for any literature. 
Seeing this tendency of Marlowe's mind, it is matter 
of surprise to find his tragedies freer from what is 
offensive than are those of any other Elizabethan 
playwright. 

Another circumstance from which the literary repu- 
tation of Marlowe has suffered very heavily, and with 
justice, too, is the reflection upon it from his personal 



CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE. 1 6/ 

character. He appears also to have been upon the 
stage at one time, and that was enough to condemn a 
man in those days. He was one of a clique with Nash 
and Greene, who were dreaded or despised in London. 
But it was the notorious scandal of Marlowe's death 
that effectually blasted the credit of his life. His death 
by violence barely saved him from becoming a mur- 
derer ; he was killed in a street-brawl which he rushed 
into with the design of assassinating an enemy. 

It must have been a very undesirable literary repu- 
tation that would not have suffered from what has 
been related of Marlowe. More than this, however, 
it has been the hard fortune of this name to have 
to bear. 

It is pretty clear that the author has been con- 
founded with one of his characters.* We find him 
spoken of as a reckless atheist, — as one who had sold 
his soul to the devil for certain instructions and privi- 
leges. As a ballad-writer of his day describes him : 

" This man did his owne God denie, 
And Christ his onlie son, 
And did all punishment defie. 
So he his course might run.'* 

There is nothing in Marlowe's writings from which 
such a conclusion could be fairly drawn. But he had 
dramatized the old legendary story of Doctor Faustus, 
and the ballad exactly applies to that character. It was 
a case of mistaken identity, and the mistake was a most 
stupid one. Does it seem to any one too gross a 
blunder even for a ballad- writer? There is httle diffi- 
culty in finding its parallel. During the Middle Ages, 
Virgil was regarded as a magician. He was reported 
to have called up the spirits of the dead, and to have 



1 68 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

visited the lower world. The only foundation for such 
a story was the poetic sending of his hero to those 
regions in the sixth book of the "^neid." 

Along with this strange mishap to Marlowe's repu- 
tation, it is a pleasant thing to note that a wayward 
fortune sometimes favored him. Nearly a hundred 
years after the poet's day, a contemplative man, taking 
his recreation in giving to the world '' The Compleat 
Angler," took occasion to mention with delighted 
approval the simple and harmless pastoral of ''The 
Passionate Shepherd to his Love : " and from this 
time on, this trifle of Marlowe's was immortal. No 
matter how broad or how narrow may be the plan 
upon which a collection of English verse may be made, 
it always contains Izaak Walton's favorite. 

The study of the poet's works will prove more agree- 
able than the contemplation either of his character or 
of his life. His first play was the tragedy of " Tam- 
burlaine the Great," in two parts. This is the earliest 
English tragedy in blank verse, with occasional rhymed 
couplets, and formed upon the model which has held 
the popular favor to the present time. It was an am- 
bitious attempt for any writer, and the success of the 
youthful poet certainly does credit to his talent. It is 
an easy matter to criticise the performance from any 
point of view nearer our own time, for it was to be 
eclipsed within a very few years by Shakspeare's work ; 
but if we do the author the simple justice of compar- 
ing his work only with what had gone before it, we 
shall find occasion for nothing but praise. 

The reader of the tragedy will see at once that Tam- 
burlaine engrosses a disproportionate share of the dia- 
logue. It is not in keeping with the purposes of the 
stage, nor with the proprieties of ordinary intercourse. 



CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE. 1 69 

There are two ways of accounting for this want of sym- 
metry. Poets had been accustomed, from Homer's 
day downward, to present their heroes conspicuous for 
some one virtue. Odysseus was the man of infinite 
resource, and ^neas was everywhere the devoted. 
Chaucer's patient Griselle was only that virtue personi- 
fied. Influenced by the traditions of the past, Mar- 
lowe would naturally feel that he could not possibly 
draw a character that should actually out-brag the arro- 
gant Tartar chief. 

Another explanation of the matter can be found. 
The play may have been written to order, as it were. 
The part of Tamburlaine may have been designed to 
suit the talent of some popular actor of the day, such 
as Alleyn has the reputation of having been. This 
player would be expected to monopolize all the atten- 
tion and the interest of the spectators. The su[)port 
would be of little account. Thus the permanent and 
essential in literature would be sacrificed to the whim 
of popular fancy and the fashion of histrionic art. In 
the particular instance now under our view, the latter 
theory seems the more reasonable one. 

A glance at the play will reveal Marlowe's peculiar 
treatment of his subject. In the first act, before Tam- 
burlaine has set out upon his career of conquest,, he 
closes a long and persuasive argument to induce a 
Persian nobleman to take part in the enterprise, with 
these lines : — 

" Jove sometime masked in a shepherd's weed ; 
And by those steps that he hath scaled the heavens 
May we become immortal as the gods. 
Join with me now in this my mean estate 
(I call it mean because, being yet obscure, 
The nations far removed admire me not), 
And when my name and honor shall be spread 



I/O WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

As far as Boreas claps his brazen wings, 
Or fair Bootes sends his cheerful light, 
Then shalt thou be competitor with me, 
And sit with Tamburlaine in all his majesty." 

The rhythm of this, as of all Marlowe's verse, runs 
on as smoothly as if our language had even then been 
poHshed by the skill and taste of Milton. The rhyme 
at the close is common, but the lengthening of the last 
line by an extra foot is unusual. It ends the passage 
with an easy cadence well suited to the dignity of the 
thought. One will also note with what easy flight the 
poet's fancy makes an excursion into regions rarely 
penetrated by human interests. This is done by way 
of amplification, and is the least offensive form of Tartar 
boasting. As a display of the poet's faculty, it is made 
highly attractive, and it becomes the most frequent 
ornament of Marlowe's verse. A good example is 
found in these lines addressed by Tamburlaine to his 
comrades whom he has seated upon conquered thrones : 

" You that have marched with happy Tamburlaine 
As far as from the frozen place of heaven 
Unto the watery morning's ruddy bower, 
And thence by land unto the torrid zone, 
Deserve these titles I endow you with 
By valor and by magnanimity. 
Your births shall be no blemish to your fame ; 
For virtue is the fount whence honor springs. 
And they are worthy she investeth kings." 

There is a difficulty in quoting from Marlowe. The 
speeches are apt to be too long, and even single sen- 
tences are much involved. Some idea of the force of 
his language may be gained from what the hero says 
to the captive sultan, — 

" The god of war resigns his room to me, 
Meaning to make me general of the world ; 



CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE. I/I 

Jove viewing me in arms, looks pale and wan, 
Fearing my power should pull him from his throne. 
Where'er I come, the Fatal Sisters sweat, 
And grisly Death, by running to and fro, 
To do their ceaseless homage to my sword. 

Millions of souls sit on the banks of Styx, 
Waiting the back-return of Charon's boat; 
Hell and Elysium swarm with ghosts of men 
That I have sent from sundry foughten fields, 
To spread my fame through hell and up to heaven." 

"The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus " was 
founded upon an early legendary story of a learned 
man who sold himself to Satan that he might become 
skilled in the arts of magic. The story appears to be- 
long to the Middle Ages, when a belief in witchcraft 
was common, and when astrology was seriously studied. 
This play connects the modern drama with the early 
mysteries and moralities. The same story is the basis 
of Goethe's " Faust." Of the two versions, Marlowe's 
is the better. It conforms more nearly to the early 
diabolical idea. The poet did not try to engraft upon 
that notion any polite scampishness of modern life. 
The introduction of the Good Angel and the Evil 
Angel at different points, the one trying to dissuade 
Faust from his purpose, the other drawing him on to 
his ruin, adds to the effectiveness with which the play 
could be presented. That Goethe's "Faust" should 
suit the German is perfectly matter of course : but its 
popularity among English readers must be due to the 
circumstance that Marlowe's version is not generally 
known. 

In this play INIephistophiles is the business agent of 
Satan, and he conducts himself as a gentlem.an through- 
out all their intercourse. Upon his first appearance he 



1 72 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

plainly tells Faust that the conjuring of the latter has 
had nothing to do directly with his visit. A portion of 
that first interview will show his character. 

" Fatist. But, leaving these vain trifles of men's souls, 
Tell me what is that Lucifer, thy lord? 

Meph. Arch-regent and commander of all spirits. 

Faust. Was not that Lucifer an angel once ? 

Meph. Yes, Faustus, and most dearly loved of God. 

Faust. How comes it, then, that he is prince of devils ? 

Meph. Oh, by aspiring pride and insolence, 
For which God threw him from the face of heaven. 

Faust. And what are you that live with Lucifer ? 

Meph. Unhappy spirits that fell with Lucifer, 
Conspired against our God with Lucifer, 
And are forever damned with Lucifer. 

Faust. Where are you damned ? 

Meph. In hell. 

Faust. How comes it, then, that thou art out of hell ? 

Meph. Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it ; 
Think'st thou that I, who saw the face of God, 
And tasted the eternal joys of heaven, 
Am not tormented with ten thousand hells, 
In being deprived of everlasting bliss ? 
Oh, Faustus, leave these frivolous demands, 
Which strike a terror to my fainting soul I " 

All this is Straightforward and business-like. 
Goethe's spectacular effects are tawdry by comparison. 
Milton works into his '' Paradise Lost " much of the 
material which this play affords. 

Marlowe's historical play of " Edward the Second " 
is even less adapted to the stage than those we have 
mentioned. It shows, however, more of the poet's 
manner. In greeting the king, Gaveston says, — 

" The shepherd, nipt with biting winter's rage. 
Frolics not more to see the painted spring 
Than I do to behold your Majesty." 



CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, 1 73 

The king soliloquizes in regard to his rebellious 
nobles, — 

" Edward, unfold thy paws, 
And let their lives'-blood slake thy fury's hunger." 

The queen, lamenting her husband's wandering af- 
fections, exclaimsj — 

•'Oh that mine arms could close this isle about, 
That I might pull him to me where I would ! " 

In view of what followed in the political history of 
England, the following passage from this play, which 
was written before 1593, reads much like a prophecy. 
Were we to meet with anything hke it in the ancient 
writers, we should strongly suspect it to be an interpo- 
lation. It is spoken by the younger Mortimer after he 
has gained the ascendency in the government : 

" They thrust upon me the protectorship, 
And sue to me for that that I desire ; 
While at the council-table, grave enough, 
And not unlike a bashful Puritan, 
First I complain of imbecility. 
Saying it is onus qiiajn gravissimiim ; 
Till, being interrupted by my friends, 
Suscepi t\\?Lt p7'ovinciam, as they term it ; 
And, to conclude, I am Protector now." 

In this instance Marlowe wrote into the history of 
the first half of the fourteenth century, as an accom- 
plished fact, what must have been but the remotest 
aspiration of the political reformers of his own time. 



XXIII. 

THOMAS MIDDLETON. 

i57o?-i627. 

MIDDLETON belongs to the time of Shakspeare. 
His generation was that of the dramatists, and 
all his life long he was of that school of composition. 
The date of his birth is not exactly known, but as he 
was publishing before 1600, editors have assumed with 
a good degree of probability that he was born about 
1570. Mr. Dyce was able to estabhsh the time of his 
death by finding the record of his burial, on July 4, 
1627. The number of his plays that have come down 
to our time is sufficient to prove that the years between 
the time when he began to print, in 1597, to the time 
of his death, were busy years of hterary work. There 
is, however, one circumstance to be taken into account 
when we are judging of the industry and copiousness 
of such a writer, and that is, that we often find him 
associated with other writers of the same school in the 
production of a play ; and it is not always easy, or even 
at times possible, to make out where the credit or 
the discredit, as the case may be, rightfully belongs. 
This co-operative system of labor seems to have been 
adopted simply for the sake of despatch when the 
managers and the public were eager for a new play. 
In these literary partnerships Middleton is found asso» 



THOMAS MIDDLETON. 175' 

ciated with Webster, Dekker, Drayton, and Rowley; 
sometimes with two or three of them in the same play. 

Several editions of Middleton's works have appeared 
within the last forty years. In this respect his reputa- 
tion is particularly fortunate. Any editor who expends 
so much labor upon an author as Mr. Dyce or Mr. 
Bullen have spent upon this one, is likely to discover a 
good deal that is really praiseworthy in so large a body 
of literature. Indeed, it is natural to suppose that such 
an editor was acquainted with many points of excel- 
lence before^ undertaking the work. The judgment of 
such a person is authoritative. His editors have given 
Middleton rank with the second-rate dramatists, as 
Webster, Heywood, Chapman, Massinger, and so on.* 
No one will dispute the correctness of this judgment, 
only it will do no harm to stop and reflect that the 
work of a dramatist is to be looked at from two distinct 
points of view, and that these points are to be taken 
on opposite sides of the subject. It will be admitted 
by all who have observed what qualities in a play con- 
tribute to its popular success that a drama may be 
effective on the stage, and yet prove dull reading. It 
may be a good play and poor hterature, and it may be 
just the contrary. The one test is quite independent 
of the other. For this reason com.parisons are least 
satisfactory of all among the dramatists. 

If, however, Middleton is to rank with those of his 
fellows with whom he has been classed, it is as a play- 
wright, and not as a poet. In the former character we 
have no occasion to speak of him here. It is with his 
work as a part of our literature that we are now con- 
cerned. Considered simply as a poet, he falls to a 
lower rank than that of the second place among the 
poets of his age. He is inferior to those who have 



176 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

been named in connection with him. Whether this is 
to be accounted for on the score of inferior abihties, or 
because of the stress of circumstances, which forced him 
to work in haste, it is not easy now to decide. The 
point is one all the more difficult to decide because of 
the very unequal merit of his page. There are passages 
to be met here and there, at long intervals, which give 
promise of poetic excellence ; but the promise is sadly 
broken in a very few lines. One can find little to 
quote for its beauty of composition or for its nobility 
of sentiment. The lyric parts of his plays and masques 
are far below the songs of his fellow writers. The tra- 
ditional reputation of the man must rest mainly upon 
the skill with which his plays are fitted to the stage. 

But there is one respect in which Middleton is of 
more interest to readers in this country than is any 
other poet of his time : this is the frequency in his 
plays of allusions to America, or to the religious and 
political circumstances of English hfe which were di- 
rectly operating to swell the tide of emigration to these 
shores. The value of these notices is not one whit 
the less for the reason that the author was a narrow, 
bigoted partisan, incapable of one hearty, patriotic 
impulse such as throbs in the literature of the age. 
His scorn of Puritan ideas and of Puritan ways is 
honest, and we may take this as the sentiment of the 
theatre-going public of the time. That it should 
prove a potent agency in hastening the setdement of 
these colonies is the most natural thing in the world. 

The earliest mention of America which I find in 
the plays of Middleton occurs in "Blurt, Master 
Constable," which was printed in 1602. It is merely 
by the way, and contains no implied disrespect. 
Lazarillo says to the spectators, " If I were to make 



THOMAS MID OLE TON. ly/ 

a discovery of any new-found land, as Virginia or 
so, to ladies and courtiers, my speech should hoist 
up sails fit to bear up such lofty and well-rigged 
vessels." Nine years later, in " The Roaring Girl," 
which was licensed in 1611, we find an allusion to the 
haste with which colonists were then coming over. 
Moll says to Sir Alexander: "Take deliberation, sir; 
never choose a wife as if you were going to Virginia." 
In '' The Family of Love," which was licensed Oct. 
12, 1607, there is a little skit at the dislike of music 
which characterized the Puritans. Act iii. scene 3, 
one of the characters says : " Organs ? . . . I detest 
'em. I hope my body has no organs." This little 
joke was often repeated in the theatres. In Mar- 
mion's "Five Companions," 1633, it is said of a 
Puritan, " He was out of love with his own members, 
because they were called organs." Again, in the 
" Royal Slave " of Cartwright, which was performed 
before Charles I. and the queen at Oxford, 1636, 
Coster proposes, among other annoying attentions to 
the Puritans, to — 

" Give organs to each parish in the kingdom, 
And so root out the unmusical elect." 

The joke was one of the best the Cavaliers presented ; 
and the persistence with which they repeated it shows 
a certain degree of taste. 

The personal allusions to the Puritans were less 
scrupulous of propriety. In the play of Middleton's 
called "A Trick to Catch the Old One," which was 
licensed Oct. 7, 1607, one of Witgood's creditors says 
to him, "Do you call us devils? You shall find us 
Puritans." In " The Family of Love," which was 
licensed, as we have seen, only five days later, Middle- 
ton is commonly supposed to have satirized the Fami- 



178 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

lists, — a sect distinct from the Puritans ; but that he 
had the latter in mind is plain from this observation in 
act iii. scene 2 : " Love 's as proper to a courtier as 
preciseness to a Puritan." In the scene which follows 
there is a caricature of a sectary which, if it does not 
there apply to the Puritans, was often enough exhibited 
afterwards as a portraiture of the sect. It will occur to 
the reader as familiar in Butler's " Hudibras," in Cleve- 
land, and elsewhere till after the Restoration. I have 
not met with it earher than in Middleton, but am much 
inclined to think that it was already commonplace 
enough in his day. The devout scoundrel of the 
piece says, " You shall hear how far I am entered in 
the right way already. First, I live in charity and give 
small alms to such as be not of the right sect ; I take 
under twenty i' th' hundred, nor no forfeiture of bonds 
unless the laws tell my conscience I may do 't ; I set 
no pot a' Sundays, but feed on cold meat drest a' 
Saturdays ; I keep no holydays nor fasts, but eat most 
flesh o' Fridays of all days i' the week ; I do use to 
say inspired graces, able to starve a wicked man with 
length; I have Aminadabs and Abrahams to my 
godsons, and I chide them when they ask me bless- 
ing ; and I do hate the red letter more than I follow 
the written verity." The "red letter" has reference 
either to the directions in the prayer-book, or to 
the Church festivals, as these were marked in the 
calendar. 

The animus of the playwright comes out in " A Mad 
World, my Masters," which was licensed Oct. 4, 1608. 
Speaking of players, Sir Bounteous says : "They were 
never more uncertain in their lives ; now up and now 
down ; they know not when to play, where to play, nor 
what to play : not when to play, for fearful fools ; 



THOMAS MIDDLE TO JV. 1 79 

where to play, for Puritan fools ; nor what to play, for 
critical fools." 

It is, however, in " The Mayor of Quinborough " 
that the bitterness of Middleton towards the Puritans 
is exhibited most fully. This play was first published 
in 1660-61. The time when it was licensed is not 
known. This event has been referred to different 
years between 1601 and 1621. It would be of interest 
to know just when it was written ; but the date concerns 
us less when we reflect upon the chances of the play 
having been reconstructed at different times to suit it 
to the changing sentiments of the people or condition 
of the realm. The author himself gives a hint of these 
adaptations in his preface to " The Roaring Girl." He 
says : " The fashion of play-making I can properly com- 
pare to nothing so naturally as the alteration in ap- 
parel." The publisher of the play, in his Address to the 
Reader, recommends /' The Mayor of Quinborough " 
with an allusion which would connect Oliver of the 
play with Cromwell; but this could not be, unless this 
character were introduced after Middleton's death. It 
is more likely that this is a pubhsher's trick to secure 
readers. 

The part of the play which most interests us is act v. 
scene i. The characters are Simon, or Simonides, 
the mayor ; Aminadab, his servant ; Glover, an official ; 
and a company of Cheaters. A disturbance in the 
street is heard in the mayor's office. 

"Sim. What joyful throat 

Is that, Aminadab ? What is the meaning of this cry ? 

Amln. The rebel is taken. 

Sim. Oliver the Puritan ? 

Amin. Oliver, Puritan, and fustian-weaver altogether. 

Sim. Fates, I thank you for this victorious day! 
Bonfires of pease-straw burn ; let the bells ring. 



l80 WELLS OF ENGLISH, 

Glov. There 's two in mending, and you know they cannot 

Sim. 'Las ! the tenor 's broken ; ring out the treble. 

\0 liver is brought in. 
I am o'ercloyed with joy ; welcome, thou rebel ! 

Oliv. I scorn thy welcome, I — 

Sim. Art thou yet so stout ? 

Wilt thou not stoop for grace ? Then get thee out. 

Oliv. I was not born to stoop but to my loom ; 
That seized upon, my stooping days are done. 
In plain terms, if thou hast anything to say to me, 
Send me away quickly ; this is no biding-place. 
I understand there are players in thy house. 
Despatch me, I charge thee, in the name of all 
The brethren. 

Sim. Nay, now proud rebel, I will make thee stay, 
And to thy greater torment see a play. 

Oliv. Oh, devil, I conjure thee by Amsterdam. 

Sim. Our word is past, 
Justice may wink awhile, but see at last. 

[ The play begins. 
Hold, stop him, stop him ! 

Oliv. Oh, that profane trumpet ! oh, oh ! 

Sim. Set him down there, I charge you, officers. 

Oliv, I '11 hide my ears and stop my eyes, 

Sim. Down with his golls [hands], I charge you, 

Oliv. Oh, tyranny, tyranny, revenge it, tribulation ! 
For rebels there are many deaths ; but sure the only way 
To execute a Puritan is seeing of a play. 
Oh, I shall swound ! 

Sim. "Which if thou dost, to spite thee, 

A player's boy shall bring thee aqtia vitce. 

Enter First Cheater. 

Oliv. Oh, I '11 not swoon at all for 't, though I die. 

Sim. Peace ! here 's a rascal list and edify. 

First Cheat. I say still, he 's an ass that cannot live by 
his wits. 

Sim. What a bold rascal 's this "i 

He calls us all asses at first dash • 
Sure none of us live by our wits, unless it be 
Oliver, the Puritan. 



THOMAS MIDDLE TOiV. l8l 

Oliv. I scorn as much to live by my wits 
As the proudest of you all. 

Si?n. Why, then, you 're an ass for company ; 
So hold your prating." 

It would prove tiresome to follow farther Middleton's 
quarrel with the Puritans. He may be regarded as the 
champion of the drama in its dechne. Just one bit of 
fancy will serve to show what the poet might have 
given us if the conditions of his life had led him into 
other poetic ways. The following is good : — 

*' Upon those lips, the sweet, fresh buds of youth, 
The holy dew of prayer lies, like pearl 
Dropt from the opening eyelids of the morn 
Upon a bashful rose." 



XXIV. 

JOHN MARSTON. 

1575-1634- 

MARSTON'S literary life was a brief one; it 
lasted for not more than five or six years. Just 
how it began or just how it ended is not easy, if pos- 
sible, now to be learned. The inscription " Oblivioni 
Sacrum " on the stone that bears the name of John 
Marston in the churchyard of Temple Church in 
London, is now as applicable to the personal and lit- 
erary life of the author as to the dust beneath. But 
short as was the career of the writer, it fell within 
the era of the supremacy of letters ; it was coincident 
with the vanishing of the Elizabethan age. The time 
of Marston fell in as well with the turning-point in 
the fortunes of the stage. He has his share in both 
the glory and the shame of the drama. Just what pro- 
portion of either is his inheritance, a late generation 
will not be curious to inquire. Upon one point the 
reader of the poet will have a positive conviction, — that 
it was not through want of vigor of thought or of ex- 
pression that this writer contributed to the decline of 
literature. 

Marston was born about 1575. His mother was 
Mary Guarsi, or Guarsie, whose ancestors had come 
into England from Genoa. This circumstance is of in- 
terest as showing from what source the son might have 



JOHN MA RS TOiY. 1 8 3 

inherited tastes so unlike his father's, and it also fur- 
nishes a plausible reason for his choosing Italian plots 
and characters for his plays. His father was a lawyer 
of the Middle Temple. He had evidently hoped and 
planned that his son should follow the same calling, for 
in his will, made in 1599, these bequests are named : 
" My furniture, etc., in my chambers in the Middle 
Temple, my law books, etc., to my said son, whom I 
hoped would have profited by them in the study of the 
law; but man proposeth, and God disposeth." This 
closing reflection occurs to the poet himself in one of 
his latest plays, "What You Will," act i. section i : 

" Randulfo. As we see the son of a divine 
Seldom proves preacher, or a lawyer's son 
Rarely a pleader (for they strive to run 
A various fortune from their ancestors)." 

At the date of his father's will, 1599, the young poet 
was suffering, as his reputation has suffered ever since, 
from the indiscretions of his satires, " The Scourge of 
Villanie" and '' Pygmalion's Image," which were pub- 
lished the year before. Bishop Hall, Ben Jonson, 
and other literary magnates who had received uncom- 
plimentary notice at the hands of Marston, repaid the 
debt in kind, with interest at a rate that would, in 
these days, seem usurious. A comparison of dates 
brings to hght a curious custom of the time. Bishop 
Hall's counter attack was published earlier than the 
offending satires of Marston. These latter must have 
been read or have circulated pretty freely in manu- 
script among those literary coteries of the town, to 
which a bright young fellow from the universities had 
easy access. 

" Pygmalion's Image " was called in by the censor 
and destroyed. Referring to this action, the poet 
makes the customary defence of himself, — 



1 84 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

" Hence, thou misjudging censor; know I wrote 
Those idle rhymes to note the odious spot 
And blemish that deforms the lineaments 
Of modern Poesie's habiliments." 



We too can echo the poet's " hence " to the cen- 
sor, but we will not call him "misjudging;" on the 
contrary, we will so far sanction his decision as to beg 
that he will be good enough to take himself off, with all 
the scurrilous personalities that were bandied in the 
narrow and irritable circles of piety and of poetry. 

Marston's dramatic career extended only from 1602 
to 1607. These five years must have been busy ones, 
and for a young man between his twenty-fifth and 
thirtieth years, they show work of great promise. The 
subsequent life of the poet until his death, in 1634, is 
purely a matter of conjecture. It is surmised, how- 
ever, that he entered the church. Such a course was 
not unlikely. Supposing this conjecture a well-founded 
one, the question naturally arises as to how he held 
himself with reference to the growing Puritan senti- 
ment of the time. There are two circumstances that 
give our mind a leaning towards the guess that he 
might have been a Nonconformist. His early en- 
counter with Bishop Hall would have little weight in 
itself; but when we take it into account together with a 
bequest in the will of Marston's widow, it lends a color 
of probability to this view. The widow left in her will 
" To my revered pastor, Master Edward Calamy, six 
angels, as a token of my respect." Calamy was a 
well-known Puritan divine. 

It is only as an author that Marston is known to us, 
and in that character it is only as a writer of tragedy 
that he will interest us His comedies and his satires 
are beneath serious notice. One play of his is of a 



JOHN MARS TON. -1 85 

mixed nature, and this circumstance may have been 
good reason for giving it the title, '' What you Will." 
In his tragedy, however, he is easily compared with 
Shakspeare. The comparison is at times so obvious 
as to impress the reader with the notion of direct 
appropriation. Putting the passages alongside each 
other, we are more inclined to think that the youthful 
dramatist betrays a close and appreciative study of his 
master, and that he rests on well-poised pinions in his 
attempts to reach the same airy heights. Take, for 
example, the lines in " Hamlet : " — 

"But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad, 
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill," 

and read after it from Marston's " Antonio and Mel- 
lida," act iii. scene i : — 

" Is not yon gleam the shuddering morn that flakes 
With silver tincture the east verge of heaven ? " 

" Et vitula tu dignus et hie," must be the verdict of 
every reader of taste. 

The younger poet at times enlarges upon the thought 
of his master ; and though the attempt may show his 
unequal strength, it proves that he knew and appreci- 
ated a good thing. King Henry VI. declares, — 

"What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted! 
Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just, 
And he but naked, though locked up in steel, 
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted." 

Marston's hero reflects, — 

" Andrugio lives, and a fair cause of arms, — 
Why, that's an army all invincible ! 
He who hath that hath a battalion, 
Royal armor of proof, huge troops of barbed steeds, 
Main squares of pikes, millions of arquebus. 
Oh, a fair cause stands firm and vs^ill abide ; 
Legions of angels fight upon her side." 



1 86 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

Fancy was Marston's richest gift. It was delicate, 
as fancy must ever be, and it was cultivated by the 
study both of Nature and of Art. A few instances 
where night is fancifully introduced will best give an 
idea of the poet's power in this direction. Antonio 
says to Mellida, — 

" And thou and I will live 
Like unmatched mirrors of calamity; 
The jealous ear of night eave-drops our talk." 

This passage is rarely equalled. I have met with the 
last line quoted by itself; but such an act seems sacri- 
lege. No one who has ever read the lines together, 
and understood the propriety of their use, would ever 
separate them. Another example of the poet's bold 
and easy flight is this : — 

" Ere night shall close the lids of yon bright stars " 

This vigorous fancy helps the dramatist to a wealth 
of life-giving epithets. In his tragedy of " Sopho- 
nisba " the heroine says to Zanthia, — 

" Love's wings so justly heave 
The body up, that as our toes shall trip 
Over the tender and obedient grass, 
Scarce any drop of dew is dashed to ground. 
And see ! the willing shade of friendly night 
Makes safe our instant haste." 

The reader cannot fail to admire here the grace and 
propriety with which the writer passes from the physi- 
cal to the metaphysical in choosing the epithets " ten- 
der " and " obedient," and how he fits the ideas of 
willingness and friendliness to the circumstances of 
the proposed flight. 

This tragedy of " Sophonisba " is Marston's strongest 
work. It had historical basis for its plot ; it grew out 
af the quarrel between Carthage and Rome. Inci- 



JOHN MARS TON. 1 8/ 

dents in abundance were ready to the writer's hand. 
The characters were chiefly famihar ones in the history 
of the period. At a time when the memory of the 
Spanish Armada was recent, there were many circum- 
stances calculated to bring the sight of a nation fight- 
ing for existence very near the hearts of Englishmen. 
The poet presents his heroine in a strong light before 
the Numidian Masinissa : — 

** Sophonisba, — 
A name for misery much known, — 't is she 
Entreats of thy graced sword this only boon : 
Let me not kneel to Rome ; for though no cause 
Of mine deserves their hate, though Masinissa 
Be ours to heart, yet Roman generals 
Make proud their triumphs with whatever captives. 
Oh, 't is a nation which from soul I fear, 
As one well knowing the much-grounded hate 
They bear to Hasdrubal and Carthage blood ; 
Therefore with tears that wash thy feet, with hands 
Unused to beg, I clasp thy manly knees ; 
Oh, save me from their fetters and contempt, 
Their proud insults and more than insolence ! 
Or if it be not in thy grace of breath 
To grant such freedom, give me long-wished death." 

That nondescript performance of Marston's to which 
reference has already been made under the title, 
" What you Will," contains a passage worthy of notice. 
It is the fling of a poet and a wit at the more serious 
speculations of philosophers and divines. Aside from 
its bearing on the question as to whether or not the 
author qualified himself to take orders, this bit of 
badinage reads as though it were reluctantly forced 
into the composition. It appears to be an adaptation 
of an earlier piece of wit. Only slight changes would 
be needed to fit it to times much nearer our own. 
The gist of the skit is in this passage : — 



1 88 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

*' Nay, mark, list Delight. 
Delight, my spaniel, slept whilst I baused leaves, 
Tossed o'er the dunces, pored on the old print 
Of titled words, — and still my spaniel slept ; 
Whilst I wasted lamp-oil, bated my flesh, 
Shrunk up my veins, — and still my spaniel slept; 
And still I held converse with Zabarell, 
Aquinas, Scotus, and the musty saw 
Of antique Donate, — still my spaniel slept. 
Still on went I , first an sit anima. 
Then, and it were mortal. Oh, hold, hold ! 
At that they are at brain buffets, fell by the ears 
Amain, pell-mell together, — still my spaniel slept. 
Then, whether 'twere corporeal, local, fixed, 
Extraduce ; but whether 't had free will 
Or no, ho, philosophers 

Stood banding factions all so strongly propped. 
I staggered, knew not which was firmer part, 
But thought, quoted, read, observed, and pried. 
Stuffed noting-books, — and still my spaniel slept. 
At length he waked and yawned, and by yon sky. 
For aught I know, he knew as much as I." 



i 



XXV. 

THOMAS HEYWOOD. 

i576?-i626. 

IF one were to name any single writer as particularly 
representative of the life and sentiment of the 
Elizabethan age, he could not well mention any with 
greater confidence than Thomas Heywood. Of the 
personal history of Heywood we know little. The 
date either of his birth or his death is not to be 
learned. The circumstance that plays of his were 
printed before 1600 warrants biographers in referring 
the former event to a time so early as 1570. In a 
similar way it is ascertained that he lived on through 
the reign of James, and perhaps he saw the end of 
Charles's reign. Contemporary authors furnish few 
notices of the man, though when he is mentioned it is 
with respect. He was himself indifferent to the publi- 
cation of his plays, and these have not received at 
later hands the attention they deserve. Scholars 
have given all their study to his fellow playwright, 
Shakspeare. 

But Heywood was intensely patriotic, in keeping 
with the prevailing sentiment of his time. English his- 
tory furnished him incidents for his plays, and all his 
characters were true Englishmen. The life he depicts is 
the hearty, vigorous life of his period. In the evident 
purpose to interest, instruct, and influence the popular 



1 90 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

sentiment of the age, his dramas resemble the earlier 
miracle-plays and narratives. With this design to affect 
the current of events, the plays would naturally and 
necessarily lack perpetuating qualities. Just as natu- 
rally they would have interest and value to the one who 
should in the future care to learn what life was being 
lived in England at the time when the literature of 
that country was most enriched with works of genius. 
The subsequent neglect of Heywood should detract 
not at all from the merit which he sought to attain, nor 
should it be taken as evidence of worthlessness on the 
part of his works. It can be satisfactorily accounted 
for by saying that he wrote expressly and exclusively 
for his people and his generation. Such an explana- 
tion must at least secure respect for the author as a 
man. 

That Heywood wrote for his time, and not for ours, 
we can learn by reading no farther than the preface 
to one of his later plays. In this he says, — 

" Though some have used a double sale of their labors, 
first to the stage, and after to the press, for my own 
part, I here proclaim myself ever faithful to the first, and 
never guilty of the last. Yet since ^ome of my plays have 
(unknown to me, and without any of my direction) acci- 
dentally come into the printer's hands, and therefore so 
corrupt and mangled (copied only by the ear) that I have 
been as unable to know them as ashamed to challenge 
them, this, therefore, I was the willinger to furnish out 
in his native habit ; first being by consent, next because 
the rest have been so wronged in being published in such 
savage and ragged ornaments.'* 

These remarks of Haywood's are instructive on 
more than one point. Not only do they show the 
author's indifference to posterity, but they also make 



THOMAS HEY WOOD. I9I 

plain the manner in which some of his plays first got 
into circulation. When he says that these were " cop- 
ied only by the ear," he must be understood to mean 
that skilled writers attended upon the performances at 
the theatres, and took the words of the actors very 
much after the manner of modern reporters. The 
preface, moreover, explains how it happened that of 
the two hundred and twenty plays which the author 
elsewhere tells us he wrote of himself or in chief part, 
only about a tenth part have come down to our hands. 

It may be as well to say first as last that Heywood 
either failed to appreciate the few essential require- 
ments of dramatic composition, or else he disregarded 
these for what would prove more effective. He may 
safely be called a story-telling playwright. His more 
important historical plays come very near being epics. 
A single composition embraces the events of a score 
or more of years all related in the order of their occur- 
rence, showing no more of the distinctive character of 
tragedy or comedy than would a chapter of general 
history. His " Queen Elizabeth," for example, consists 
of two parts : the first detailing her life up to the time 
of her accession to the throne ; the second giving the 
events of her long reign. 

In this play of " Queen Elizabeth " the poet joins 
with the grave divines and jurists of that day in extolling 
the virtues and the graces of England's sovereign. But 
perhaps the best thing in the way of compliment to 
her Majesty is to be found in " The Fair Maid of the 
West.'' The fair maid who is the heroine of that piece 
bears the name of Bess, and she is the typical girl of 
the period. Thoroughly English in all her opinions 
and feelings, the playwright contrives to have her visit 
the king of Fez, and he furnishes occasion for her to 



192 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

express her sentiments fully at the royal table. Upon 
learning that his guest bears the name Elizabeth, he 
exclaims, — 

" There 's virtue in that name. 
The virgin queen, so famous through the world, 
The mighty empress of the maiden isle, 
Whose predecessors have o'errun great France, 
Whose powerful hand doth still support the Dutch, 
And keeps the potent king of Spain in awe. 
Is not she titled so ? 

Bess. She is. 

King. Hath she herself a face so fair as yours, 
When she appears for wonder .? 

Bess. Mighty Fez, 

You cast a blush upon my maiden cheek, 
To pattern me with her. Why, England's queen. 
She is the only Phoenix of her age, 
The pride and glory of the Western Isles. 
Had I a thousand tongues, they all would tire. 
And fail me in her true description." 

This play, " The Fair Maid of the West," though 
discursive to a degree and of very uneven quality, yet 
contains passages characteristic of Heywood at his 
best, and that is the best of English dramatic compo- 
sition. The Fair Maid's lover takes his leave of her 
with the remark, — 

" Time calls hence ; 
We now must part. 

Bess. Oh that I had the power to make Time lame, 
To stay the stars, or make the moon stand still, 
That future day might never haste thy flight ! " 

Again, where Bess addresses the picture of her 
absent lover, — 

"Thou resemblest him 
For whose sweet safety I was every morning 
Down on my knees, and with the larks' sweet tunes 



THOMAS HEYWOOD. 1 93 

I did begin my prayers ; and when sad sleep 

Had charmed all eyes, and when none save the bright stars 

Were up and waking, I remembered thee; 

But all, all to no purpose." 

Here is Art most successfully concealing Art by 
holding close to Nature. Had this passage occurred 
in Shakspeare, how many times we should have suf- 
fered the impertinence of having pointed out to us the 
unconscious change from the third person at the end 
of the first Hne to the second person at the end of the 
sixth. It is a happy circumstance that there are many 
fair creations in English literature not yet paralyzed by 
the touch of the critical commentator. 

Heywood's command of language shows strong in a 
passage from " The Fair Maid of the Exchange," 
where Cripple teaches Berry how to beg. 

"And you want words, sirrah, I '11 teach thee words. 
Thou shouldst have come to every one of us 
As thus : ' Thou wretch, thou miser, thou vile slave 
And drudge to money, bondman to thy wealth, 
Apprenticed to a penny ; thou that hoardest up 
The fry of silver pence and halfpennies, 
With show of charity to give the poor. 
But put'st them to increase where in short time 
They grow a child's part, or a daughter's portion ; 
Thou that invent'st new clauses for a bond 
To cozen simple plainness, — oh, not a dragon. 
Now, nor the devil's fangs, are half so cruel 
As are thy claws.' Thus, thus thou shouldst have railed." 

The play, " If You know not Me, You know No- 
body," deals with the career of Ehzabeth before she 
came to the throne, and is perhaps of greatest interest 
from a poKtical point of view. As showing the popular 
feeling, which was suppressed by the harsh measures 
of Mary while she kept her sister in prison, two sol- 
diers employed to guard the princess are represented 

13 



194 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

as exchanging views upon the justice of their sovereign. 
The one has been cautioned that his language may be 
reported to the government, and occasion him trouble. 
He guards himself in this manner : — 

" Well, sirs, I have two sisters ; and the one loves the 
other, and would not send her to prison for a million. 
Is there any harm in this ? 1 '11 keep myself within com- 
pass, I warrant you ; for I do not talk of the queen. I 
talk of my sisters." 

The two plays relating to King Edward IV. show 
several types of English character in a strong and clear 
light. Hobs, the tanner of Tamworth, is original and 
entertaining. Hobs belongs to the well-to-do class of 
the common people of his day. He is loyal to his 
king, and is ready to support him with his means. 
The mixture of ignorance and shrewdness in his talk 
gives it a peculiar flavor. When Sir Humphrey visits 
Tamworth to solicit some contributions to the funds of 
the government, he broaches the subject with becom- 
ing consideration for the feelings of those who are 
doomed to be bled ; but the bluff tanner goes right to 
the spot. *•' So the 'feck and meaning whereby, as it 
were, of all your long purgation. Sir Humphrey, is no 
more, in some respect, but the king wants money, and 
would have some of his commonty." 

There is an abundance of dialect in these plays, as 
one might suspect from Hobs's speech. There are 
also hterary clews which are worth notice. One of 
those early pohtical squibs which were current during 
the contest between the Houses of York and Lancaster 
is met with in this play of " Edward IV." It seems to 
refer to Richard II. and some of his supporters. It 
proves that the sentiment, " to the victor belongs the 
spoils," is not of recent origin, nor is it peculiar to our 



I 



THOMAS HEY WOOD. 1 95 

politicians. The old rhymes — old in the time of 
Edward IV. — are repeated by Shore, or Flood, as he 
is called, at the request of Gloster : — 

" Glos. What libeller ? Another Collingborne, 
That wrote ' The Cat, the Rat, and Lovell our Dog, 
Do rule all England under a Hog,' — 
Canst thou repeat it, Plood? 

Shore. I think I can, if you command me so. 

Glos. We do command thee. 

Shore. In this sort it goes : 

* The crook-backed Boar the way hath found 
To root our roses from the ground ; 
Both flower and bud will be confound, 
Till King of Beasts the Swine be crowned ; 
And then the Dog, the Cat, and Rat 
Shall in his trough feed and be fat.' " 

In common with all the dramatists of that age, and 
quite naturally under the circumstances, Heywood has 
his quiet little joke at the expense of the Puritans. In 
his most popular play, '■ A Woman killed with Kind- 
ness," the Puritanic cant of the day is hit off, — 

^^ Airs. A. Oh, what a clog unto the soul is sin ! 
We pale offenders are still full of fear ; 
Every suspicious eye brings danger near 
When they, whose clear hearts from offence are free, 
Despite report, base scandals do outface, 
And stand at mere defiance with disgrace. 

Wendoll. Fie, fie ! you talk, too, like a Puritan.'* 

With a better grace and with better reason does 
Heywood ridicule the literary cribbers of the time. 
In '' Love's Mistress " we have this bit of dialogue : 

" Midas. But where 's your poet ass among all these ? 
Apidehis. There 's no such creature. 
Mida^. Then what callest thou those 
That let not men lie quiet in their. graves, 



196 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

But haunt their ghosts with ballads and bald rhymes ? 
Do they not teach the very fiends in hell 
Speak in blank verse ? Do we not daily see 
Every dull-witted ass spit poetry ? " 

Elsewhere, in " How to become a Wit," Heywood 
describes more particularly the methods of these Hter- 
ary parasites. He had evidently studied the tactics of 
those publishers who put forth unauthorized editions 
of his own plays. Cripple's speech is a disclosure : 

" Cripple. I could do more ; for I could make inquiry 
Where the best-witted gallants use to dine, 
Follow them to the tavern, and there sit 
In the next room with a calveshead and brimstone. 
And overhear their talk, observe their humors, 
Collect their jests, put them into a play, 
And tire them, too, with payment, to behold 
What I have filched from them. This I could do ; 
But oh, for shame that men should so arraign 
Their own fee-simple wits for verbal theft ! " 

Heywood possessed the gifts of a true lyric poet. 
His songs have the elements of a lasting popularity. 
Some of them are rarely equalled for truthfulness of 
feeling and melody of expressicm. As examples of 
this poet's grace and elegance of composition are to 
be met with in every collection of the gems of English 
song, they are with the less reluctance omitted here. 
Only two lines are quoted from one of them to show 
the source from which their inspiration came : — 

" Our music from the birds we borrow, 
They bidding us, we them, good-morrow." 



XXVI. 

JOHN TAYLOR. 

I 580-1 654. 

THE public has always been peculiarly indulgent 
•towards ready rhymesters, without seeming to 
care much whether sense or nonsense went along with 
the jingle. It may be that this feeling is a survival of 
that awe with which the ancient vates was regarded. 
At any rate, the itinerant vendor of original doggerel 
verse has found a market for his wares here in New 
England from early colonial times. Murders, execu- 
tions, accidental drownings, and other such painful oc- 
currences have been the occasions that have inspired 
a great amount of local talent. The manufacture and 
the patronage were both brought from England, and 
John Taylor, the water-poet, as he was called, may be 
taken as the prototype of the doggerel verse-writers of 
this country. 

Taylor belonged to a period when his example would 
be most felt for good or ill in modifying taste in the 
colonies. He was born in 1580, and in 1630 his pub- 
lished pieces, to the number of sixty-three, were col- 
lected into a folio volume of nearly a thousand pages. 
He continued publishing until 1653, the year before 
his death, and of these later pieces the Spenser Society 
has succeeded in preserving seventy-one, in five quarto 
volumes. It is likely that many of these old brochures 



198 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

were lost, for as early as 1640 Taylor declares, in his 
*' Differing Worships," — 

" I (with applause) have writ near sevenscore books." 

As his pen continued no less prolific for the next 
twelve years, it is fair to conclude that several of these 
productions have escaped the search of the Spenser 
Society. 

Of the poet himself we can learn from his verses 
all that a craving curiosity could care to know. Little 
indirect light is thrown upon his life by contemporary 
writers. A personal notice of some interest is met 
with in the Hnes of Henry Ellis, addressed to his friend 
Mr. Taylor, on his voyage and journey, 1641, — 

" From ancient Monmouth Geoffrey took his name, — 
So Henry did from Huntington likewise; 
Why may not Gloucester add to Taylor's fame, 

Since that from thence his birth and name did rise ? " 

This fixes the county to which the poet's family be- 
longed. For himself he assumed the title of " water- 
poet," ox poeta aquaticus, as he was fond of writing it, 
from the circumstance of his having been a waterman 
in his younger days. He often refers to this calling of 
his with pride, as when he was accused of flattering 
the rich for a largess, — 

" Let trencher-poets scrape for such base vails, — 
I '11 take an oar in hand when writing fails ; 
And 'twixt the boat and pen, I make no doubt 
But 1 shall shift to pick a living out, 
Without base flattery or base-coined words 
To mouldy madams or unworthy lords." 

His early employment is often alluded to by his 
fellow poets. Dekker wrote of him, — 

" Some say there is a ferryman of hell, — 
The ferryman of heaven I now know well." 



JOHN TAYLOR. 1 99 

It is to this course of the poet's unschooled early 
life that must be ascribed all the exuberance of his 
muse. His reading and his writing were restricted to 
the vernacular ; but within these limits he moved with 
freedom. In answer to the charge that poets of his 
time pilfered from the ancients, he says, — 

" For mine own part, my conscience witness is 
I ne'er was guilty of such theft as this ; 
Unto such robbery I could never reach, 
Because I understand no foreign speech. 
To prove that I am from such filching free, 
Latin and French are heathen Greek to me. 
The Grecian and the Hebrew characters 
I know as well as I can reach the stars. 
The sweet Italian and the chip-chop Dutch 
I know the man i' th' moon can speak as much." 

Curiously enough, right alongside this disclaimer of 
any and all knowledge of the ancient languages, Taylor 
abounds in classical allusions to a remarkable degree. 
They are both particular and general, and, what is 
most to be wondered at, they are usually correct. The 
poet must have borrowed all this material from English 
sources. The fact is worthy of notice, because it has 
been made a matter of great difficulty by many to ac- 
count for Shakspeare's acquaintance with the classics. 
It is plain to the reader of this poet that, through trans- 
lations, the classics were more in the hands of the gen- 
eral reader in those days than they are in these modern 
tiaies. As before said, Taylor is usually correct in his 
allusions ; but there are plenty of exceptions to prove 
the rule. For instance, in these hnes, — 

" And noble Nestor, at the siege of Troy, 
Had lived three hundred years, both man and boy," — 

he mistakes generations for centuries, and even at that 
enlarges a little upon Homer's statement. 



200 WELLS OF ENGLISLL 

Taylor never halted for difficulties, but he went over 
the hard places roughshod. No writer ever showed 
more unlimited confidence in the good-nature of his 
readers. In recounting some personal experience of 
his, he says, — 

" That villain had a mighty mind to baste me ; 
But I from him did to the castle haste me, 
Where Peterborough's earl and the Lord Rochfort 
(Pardon my rhyme, good reader, I must botch for 't) 
They knew me, and did entertain me friendly, 
And asked at what place did my journey's end lie." 

It will be seen that Taylor had a fancy for double 
rhymes, and he indulged that fancy without limit. 
Sometimes the rhyme will be kept along for a dozen 
repetitions. An example of the practice is taken from 
" Lines to the Honor of O'Toole," — 

** For if thou list in fight to lead a band on, 
Thy slaughtering sword if thou but layst thy hand on, 
Thy fearful foes would straight the place abandon, 
Without or hose or shoes, shirt, or a band on ; 
Thou let'st them have no quiet place to stand on." 

This exuberance of rhyme appears even in the 
author's titles. Along with it went a readiness in pun- 
ning. One of his pieces, published in 1644, is entitled : 
"Mad Verse, Sad Verse, Glad Verse, and Bad Verse, 
cut out and stitched together by John Taylor, who bids 
the reader either to like or dislike them, to commend 
them or come mend them." Another title to one of 
his itineraries is " A Very Merry, Wherry- Ferry Voy- 
age." But with all this facility in rhyming, he inter- 
changes verse with prose in the same piece with as 
little injury to either as was ever accomplished. In his 
" Penniless Pilgrimage," for example, he suddenly halts 
with this explanation, — 



JOHN TAYLOR. 201 

" But now my versing Muse craves some repose, 
And while she sleeps I '11 spout a little prose." 

After prosing for a time, he resumes the old measure 
as a matter of course, — 

"And now with sleep my Muse hath eased her brain, 
I '11 turn my style from prose to verse again." 

That he had some sense of the fitness of things 
appears in his account of the journey he made from 
London to Sahsbury. In this case it is not to rest his 
muse, but — 

" Some serious matter now I must compile ; 
And thus from verse to prose I change my style." 

In writing " The Praise, Antiquity, and Commodity 
of Beggary," and " Beggars and Begging," Tay- 
lor throws a little light upon the authorship of a 
well-known song which has come down to us from the 
Elizabethan era without having any name appended. 
The circumstances under which the song was written 
seem to have been known to him, and from his sing- 
ling this out as an illustration, we may conclude that 
it was a favorite then as well as now. The " Praise," 
etc., runs in this wise : — 

" And though a poet have th' accomplished parts 
Of learning, and the axioms of all arts ; 
What though he study all his brains to dust 
To make his fame immortal and from rust, 
Revolving day by day and night by night, 
And waste himself by giving others light, — 
Yet this is all the guerdon he shall have, 
That beggary will attend him to his grave. 
He, in his own conceit, may have this bliss. 
And sing, ^My mind to me a kingdojn is.' " 

Elsewhere the poet gives his view of the condition 
of his art in those times. The prospect he presents as 



202 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

possible under certain contingencies does not very 
strongly second his suggestion. 

" Let Liberality awake, and then 
Each poet in his hand will take a pen, 
And with rare lines enrich a world of paper 
Shall make Apollo and the Muses caper." 

What idea the poet had of enriching paper is not 
easy to discover from his works ; but we must at any 
rate give him credit for being able consciously to write 
doggerel. In opening his story of " A Dog of War," 
he says, — 

" In doggerel rhymes my lines are writ, 
As for a dog I thought it fit." 

In the course of this performance he introduces a 
stanza that has not the slightest relation to the context. 
The absurdity of the thing recalls the capering of the 

Muses. 

" Great Alexander had a horse, 
A famous beast of mighty force, 

Ycleped Bucephalus. 
He was a stout and sturdy steed, 
And of an excellent race and breed ; 

But that concerns not us." 

Any notice of Taylor that did not take in his rela- 
tions with the great political and ecclesiastical parties 
which made a battle-ground of England, from 1640 to 
the end of his hfe, would be fatally incomplete. His 
position was always plainly defined and strongly de- 
fended. He was a Cavalier against the Roundheads ; 
he was a Churchman against schismatics. He charac- 
terizes his enemies in language luminous with a tinted 
light. He groups them in *' the two hellish factions, — 
the Papists and the Brownists." It is the latter of 
these who most interest us here. Anything that makes 



JOHN TAYLOR. 203 

intelligible the exodus from England which promoted 
the settlement of New England has interest for us. In 
the earlier stages of that movement it was evidently 
looked upon as a desertion of native soil for a foreign 
one. Removal to Holland was stigmatized as dis- 
loyalty. The subsequent removal to these shores suffi- 
ciently disproved the charge of a want of patriotism. 
In " The Water Cormorant's Complaint against a 
Brood of Sand Cormorants," published previously to 
1630, Taylor pays his respects to these renegades. 

" And what ungodly place can harbor then 
These fugitive unnatural Englishmen, 
Except that with the Turk or infidel, 
Or on or in the sea they mean to dwell ; 
That if in lesser room they may be crammed, 
And live and die at Amster and be damned." 

The same spirit is shown in " The Praise of Hemp- 
seed," published at about the same time. 

"And for his kneeling at the sacrament, 
In sooth he '11 rather suffer banishment, 
And go to Amster damned, "and live and die. 
Ere he '11 commit so much idolatry." 

Whoever has observed how much light Macaulay 
has thrown upon a later period of English history from 
the cheapest current literature of the time, will see at 
once the value of such abusive partisan writings as the 
water-poet was busy in sending out just before the 
days of the Commonwealth. 



XXVII. 

PHILIP MASSINGER. 

1 584-1640. 

IT is not encouraging, to say the least, when search 
for the personal history of a man is rewarded with 
the discovery of a brief, business-like entry in the 
mortuary records of an obscure country parish. It 
tells no more than what can be said of all who have 
died, — of the quiet villager and of the man of the 
world alike. The record may be an affecting one, but, 
after all, when we associate it with the story of a long 
and busy life, it strikes us very much as does the 
closing of the book after its story has been read. 
Nothing could be said of a man which would give us 
less of a clew to his life and character. And yet we 
must content ourselves chiefly with this slight memorial 
mention in regard to the personal history of one of 
Shakspeare's worthiest successors. 

The register of St. Saviour's parish shows the follow- 
ing entry: "March 20, 1639-40, buried Philip Mas- 
singer, a stranger." It may be that the word " stranger " 
was used so late as this, as it had been used in the 
time of Edward I., to designate technically a non- 
resident of the parish. However that may have been, 
it is pretty evident that the parish clerk had no dream 
that a more curious generation would ever, in turning 
those pages and reading his entries, stop at the name 
of Massinger. 



PHILIP MASSINGER. 20$ 

We shall find, in the circumstances of the times 
under Charles I., good grounds for the ready willing- 
ness of the parish to ignore the poet as a stranger. No 
stone was set up to mark his grave, and we may almost 
say that for two hundred years his fame slept with him^ 
From the obscurity of his life and fortune the world 
has feelingly, and most likely with justice, applied to 
him the line, — 

" Poorly, poor man, he lived, — poorly, poor man, he died.'* 

He was not fortunate in the choice of his profession ; 
or, what is more likely, following the bent of his genius, 
he had the ill luck to fall on evil times. The period of 
his life, from 1584 to 1639, coincided with the rapid 
decadence of interest in histrionic art and in dramatic 
composition. His earher memories were brightened 
with the gayeties of the court of Elizabeth, and his 
later prospects were darkened by the solemnities of the 
Puritan Parliament. For twenty-five years after the 
poet's death, all work such as his was as completely 
tabooed from library, from school, and from social as- 
sembhes as if it had been subject to the disabilities of 
a legislative as well as of an ecclesiastical interdict. In 
the light of later developments, we can easily imagine 
that parish clerk, on the 20th of March, 1639, writing 
after the name of Massinger the word "stranger " with 
a feeling of pharisaic satisfaction. It may here be 
noted that everything which patient and diligent search 
could glean relating to the personal history of the 
poet will be found in the introduction to his plays by 
Hartley Coleridge. 

We shall be all the more content with the little we 
can learn of the man when we reflect how little is posi- 
tively known of the life of Shakspeare. Some pretty 



206 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

obvious considerations will tend to moderate our curi- 
osity in regard to the life and character of any dramatic 
writer. No species of writing is more closely related 
to the arts of representation than this. Now, it is 
well understood that every work of art is to be judged 
independent of the character and reputation of the 
artist. If the work is really bad, not all the virtues of 
a saint on the part of author or artist can save it from 
being damned. On the other band, if the work is 
good, its excellences are undimmed by any vice of the 
workman. Again, it was a rule observed by the Greek 
dramatists, and observed, too, by all who have followed 
them with any degree of success, that the writer's per- 
sonality should appear as little as possible in his work. 
As a consequence, dramatic writing reveals nothing 
more clearly of its author than a genius for keeping 
himself out of sight. 

There is, however, one quality which marks all true 
poetry and art, and which connects it with its author. 
It makes us forget to study and to criticise, as we 
always forget to do in the presence of the highest art. 
This quality is that impressiveness by which the idea of 
the picture, the poem, or the statue which we are con- 
templating is borne in upon our soul. How much 
stronger and fresher was that original inspiration which 
had previously moved the mind of the author ! It is 
when we realize this that we begin to feel that exalta- 
tion to which some mind must have been raised before 
it conceived the beauty and the glory of that which is 
before us. This is genius. Incapable of being sullied 
by the life and character of its possessor, it has that 
power of awakening sentiment which makes all artistic 
and literary expression the bond it is between the 
present and the past. 



PHILIP MASSINGER. 20/ 

The want of pure genius in the writings of Massinger 
need not surprise us ; it is rare enough in every htera- 
ture. But an author may deserve to be read because 
of his relation to time and place in history. This is 
what gives the plays before us their interest. They are 
the latest products of what may be called the Shak- 
spearian era. At the beginning of the seventeenth 
century the stage was a recognized power in England. 
Under the pressure of public opinion its influence 
must go with the one party or the other if it would not 
be ground to powder between them as the upper and 
the nether millstone. The Church was with good 
reason unfriendly. Government and society would 
patronize the drama if they could make it useful to 
their purposes. In the general going down of institu- 
tions, the stage must prove its fitness to survive if it 
would escape the fate of others. Puritan reform had 
methods and machinery of its own, quite independent 
of the stage, and Puritan reform prevailed. What 
dramatists could do at such a time as this can best be 
seen in the works of Massinger. 

The poet evidently tried the middle course as the 
safest. This made him conservative ; and he held to 
the traditional faults as well as to the excellences of 
his art. It is for this reason, we must conclude, that 
his pages are here and there smirched to the very last 
with language that is the shame of dramatic literature. 
For we do not have to read far to discover that he was 
of gentle birth, of good parts and education, with the 
instincts of a literary man and of a gentleman. The 
eighteen plays of his that remain to us, though less than 
half he wrote, are evidence enough that during the 
working years of his life he must have applied himself 
assiduously to letters. From the fact that he has 



208 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

left little of prose or verse besides his plays, we 
can confidently class Massinger with the professional 
playwrights. 

How the author looked upon his profession may be 
seen, it is fair to presume, from one of his plays, " The 
Roman Actor." In the opening scene of the first act 
of this, the players are introduced complaining of the 
want of patronage in their day. After speaking of 
other entertainments upon which the public spend 
their time and money, the actors continue the colloquy 
as follows : — 

" Paris. Yet grudge us, 

That with delight join profit and endeavor 
To build their minds up fair, and on the stage 
Decipher to the life what honors wait 
On good and glorious actions, and the shame 
That treads upon the heels of vice, the salary 
Of six sestertii. 

yEsopus. For the profit, Paris, 

And mercenary gain, they are things beneath us ; 
Since while you hold your grace and power with Caesar, 
We from your bounty find a large supply, 
Nor can one thought of want ever approach us. 

Paris. Our aim is glory, and to leave our names 
To aftertime. 

Latimts. And, would they give us leave, 
There ends all our ambition." 

If we assume that the writer here identifies himself 
with the actor, — and such is the traditional usage of his 
guild, — it will be seen that he proposes, as his aim and 
purpose, to show virtue rewarded and vice punished ; 
and he proposes to do this, as the novelists have so 
often done it, *' to the life." The mistake of both 
novelist and dramatist has been their realism. Nature 
and grace both idealize. No human genius has ever 
yet wrought with motives and actions as Providence 



PIULIP MASSINGER. 209 

has done. When moralists attempt to train us in the 
conduct of life by warning example, they are in great 
danger of running into excess. They present at one 
view the full scope of human possibilities. Actual life 
is held within bounds which it rarely touches. This 
moral training reminds one of the Spartan method of 
teaching temperance by the exhibition of drunken 
Helots. Often it assumes the grim grotesqueness of 
the slave's reminder to his royal master at the banquet 
table and in the midst of the revels : " O king, you are 
going to die ! " 

The reader will not have failed to notice, in the pas- 
sage quoted, the dignity and propriety of the language 
used and the smoothness of the rhythm. That Mas- 
singer was not unaware what was due to his calling, is 
plain enough in this passage from " The Bondman ; " 

*' Grceculo, You may see 

We are prepared for hanging, and confess 
We have deserved it ; our most humble suit is 
We may not twice be executed. 

Thnoleon. Twice ! 

How meanest thou .? 

Gr(zculo. At the gallows first, and after in ballad 
Sung to some villainous tune. There are ten-groat rhymers 
About the town, grown fat on these occasions. 
Let but a chapel fall or street be fired, 
A foolish lover hang himself for pure love, 
Or any such like accident, and before 
They are cold in their graves, some damn'd ditty 's made 
Which makes their ghosts walk." 

The reader of these plays will observe here and there 
a borrowing of partial personality which barely outlines 
some phantom of thought. In " The Renegade," 
Manto says, — 

" My much haste now commands me hence." 
14 



210 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

In another place Bellisant directs, — 

" Convey him in; 
But do it with a face of fear." 

This pertains wholly to the finish of the work. The 
poet's strength and originality is to be found in the 
construction of his plots and in the drawing of his 
characters. In the former he was hampered by the 
circumstances of the times. Of the thirty-seven plays 
the titles of which are preserved, there are but two 
known to have had their scene laid in England. The 
subjects chosen were equally remote from the interests 
of the day. This has had much to do with shelving 
the author above the reach of ordinary readers, but it 
has made his work all the more valuable for literary 
study. 



XXVIII. 

ROBERT HERRICK. 

1 591 ?-i674. 

THE literary work of Herrick belongs to the first 
half of the seventeenth century. The collec- 
tion of his poems which he called " Hesperides " — a 
fruitage of sunset gardens — was pubhshed first in 1648. 
He was then nearly sixty years of age, since 1591 is 
commonly given as the year of his birth. Evidently 
the poet had for a long time meditated publication ; for 
we find scattered through the collection no less than 
seven rhymed addresses to his book, to say nothing 
of allusions to it in phrases such as "pains without 
profit." To the same purport is the speeding he gives 
the volume in this line, — 

" Go thou forth, my book, though late." 

That the publication was intended to embrace all his 
poetical effusions appears from this : — 

" Oaly a little more 
I have to write ; 
Then I '11 give o'er, 
And bid the world good-night." 

With what kindliness of feeling this last good-night was 
spoken, the worthy curate gives us assurance — 

" That each lyric here shall be 
Of my love a legacy 
Left to all posterity." 



212 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

The boyhood of Herrick was passed under the reign 
of Elizabeth, and he carried through his life the literary 
traditions of that era. But the youth of the poet 
opened upon a period impatient of art, and his hfe of 
study and of work was spent in an age intolerant of all 
trifling, and devoted to what was serious in purpose 
and heroic in attempt. An age that could afford in- 
spiration to a Milton had little of encouragement for 
such a man as Herrick. And yet through this period 
of loud contention and sturdy resistance the poet goes 
singing in perfect unconsciousness or with utter aban- 
don. To come upon his lyric songs in the literature 
of that time is like a rare suggestion of summer on a 
stormy day in March. The trees around us are bare, 
the grass and the stubble are equally harsh and dry, 
the ground is yet frozen, and the brooks are warm in 
their beds, only under heavy blankets of ice, snow drifts 
through the air and over the fields, making gloom 
above and about us, when all at once there comes 
down with the flakes of snow a stream of golden sun- 
light. We look up through the glittering flakes, through 
a rift in the breaking clouds, and we catch a glimpse 
of the blue sky beyond, as calm and mild as that which 
smiles on all the land and sea in the pleasant days of 
June. At the same time from the woodside comes a 
low, sweet note of music such as we remember to have 
heard in the prelude to a summer's symphony. We 
look, and there flashes out from among the twigs of the 
thicket and the dead leaves clinging to them a gleam 
of blue as bright as that of summer heavens, as if a 
fleck of the sky above had got astray, and, joining 
the mad whirl of the flakes of snow, had come to the 
earth with them. We have to rouse our memory to 
recall that this is the blue of a bluebird's back. 



ROBER T HER RICK. 2 1 3 

In his long literary career Herrick carried his hearti- 
ness and truthfulness of feeling far into an age which 
was crystallizing the sentiments of humanity into un- 
changing form for future poetic use. Perhaps his out- 
of-the-way life as a country parson had much to do 
with preserving his naturalness of feeling. Had he 
lived more in the company of writers of his time he 
might have followed less sure guidance than his own 
poetic instinct. We feel the more that there was this 
risk when he tells us at the shrine of what divinity he 

worships. 

" Candles I '11 give to thee, 
And a new altar, 
And thou, Saint Ben, shalt be 
Writ in my psalter." 

The saint to be added to the poet's calendar was no 
other than Ben Jonson. At such a shrine as he pro- 
posed to raise, it is to be feared that Herrick would 
have made quite different offerings from the kids and 
lambs of his pastoral verse. As it was, in the quiet 
of his Devon living his simple Muse drew inspiration 
from the famihar scenes and simple life about him. 
He tells us in the argument to his book what themes 
employed his pen : — 

*' I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds and bowers, 
Of April, May, of June and July flowers ; 
I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes, 
Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal cakes. 
I write of youth, of love, and have access 
By these to sing of cleanly wantonness ; 
I sing of dews, of rains, and, piece by piece, 
Of balm, of oil, of spice, and ambergris ; 
I sing of times trans-shiftmg ; and I write 
How roses first came red, and lilies white ; 
I write of groves, of twilights, and I sing 
The court of Mab and of the fairy king. 
I write of Hell ; I sing, and ever shall. 
Of Heaven, and hope to have it after all." 



214 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

It will be seen that these themes include what is 
fair and sweet in Nature, what is romantic and tender 
in life. Herrick was for his day a sort of interpreter 
of Nature ; it was given him to find — 

" A present god-like power 
Imprinted in each herb and flower ; " 

and this was a gift withheld from his fellow poets for 
many generations after. What is peculiar to his sym- 
pathy for the objects about him is that he does not 
call for them to minister to any want of his, but he 
gives himself wholly to their unspoken tenderness of 
being. Wordsworth could have shown no more deli- 
cacy or fineness of sentiment in coming upon prim- 
roses bathed in morning dew, — 

" Why do ye weep, sweet babes ? 
Can tears 
Speak grief in you 
Who were but born 
Just as the modest morn 
Teemed her refreshing dew ? 
Alas ! ye have not known that shower 
That mars a flower, 
Nor felt the unkind 
Breath of a blasting wind ; 
Nor are ye worn with years, 

Or warped, as we, 
Who think it strange to see 
Such pretty flowers, like to orphans young, 
To speak by tears before ye have a tongue." 

The poet shows in this a vividness of fancy like that 
of the early Greeks, who peopled woods and waters 
with dryads and with nymphs. His rare skill appears 
in his questioning Nature, rather than in assigning mo- 
tives of his own suggestion. He moralizes very little ; 
his fancy takes no lofty or extended flight. It is the 



ROBER T HERRICK. 2 1 5 

lark running through the meadow grass, not singing at 
heaven's gate. Whenever it takes flight, it quickly 
comes to the ground again ; and always it ahghts on 
English soil. This contentment with homely scenes 
and subjects is to be praised all the more in one who 
saw growing in popularity the school of French 
classicism. 

Herrick's special fondness is for flowers. We have 
already seen that it was not the case with him, as it 
was with Peter Bell, that — 

** A primrose by a river's brim 
A yellow primrose was to him, 
And it was nothing more." 

He calls the violets maids-of-honor to the spring ; and 
writing of the heart' s-ease, or pansies, he says, — 

" Frolic virgins once these were, 
Over-loving, living here." 

But perhaps the most familiar of the poet's lines, 
and those which show him at his best, are those ad- 
dressed to the daffodils. 

" Fair daffodils, we weep to see 
You haste away so soon ; 
As yet the early rising sun 
Has not attained his noon. 
Stay, stay 
Until the hasting day 
Has run 
But to the evensong ; 
And having prayed together, we 
Will go with you along." 

One cannot speak of Herrick and omit all mention 
of the coarseness which mars so much of his verse as 
to render his complete works wholly unfit for reading 
at the present day. Happily for the poet's reputation. 



2l6 WELLS OF ENGLLSH. 

and for the pleasure of such readers as enjoy the 
music of his lyre, Mr. Francis T. Palgrave has prepared 
an expurgated edition of Herrick which contauis noth- 
ing to offend. In defence of that coarseness no right- 
minded and right-principled student of English will 
say one word ; his condemnation of it will be swift 
and emphatic. But when it comes to the question of 
throwing away the gold that lies in the mud, that is 
another matter. The true, the beautiful, and the good 
are rarely found unmixed with error, deformity, and 
vice. If we are to deny ourselves all share in these 
except what comes to us refined from all dross by 
some process in which we have taken no part, the 
chances are that our possessions will be but meagre. 
This reflection is made upon the works of Herrick 
because within a few years one who is eminent in Eng- 
lish letters has declared that we cannot afford to keep 
any work which bears the taint of impurity. A cooler 
judgment will agree with the critic in the propriety of 
purging our literature from all impurity ; but it will be 
no less positive that we cannot afford to throw away 
any good thing from our treasures of art and of 
letters. 



XXIX. 

IZAAK WALTON. 

1593-1683. 

DEAR old Izaak Walton did love to go a-fishing, 
and he had the candor and the courage to 
make open avowal of his passion. In this weakness 
of his the gentle angler was by no means singular, for 
there has Hved on to the present day of more sensa- 
tional pleasures a certain fond regard for the amiable 
art of fishing ; and to this diversion many still devote 
that portion of their lives which Sir Henry Wotton 
used to call — 

" His idle time not idly spent." 

This innate pleasure of angUng seems to be a survi- 
val from an earlier and simpler age, and it loses little 
of intensity as it reappears in later generations. The 
disciples of Walton, so far as the intent of their prac- 
tice is concerned, still go a fishing with all the ardor 
of their worthy master, and they still follow the sport 
with a patience not less than that with which he loitered 
by Shawford Brook, or strolled down quiet Dovedale. 
But yet there is all the difference in the world in the 
manner of their going. Clearly, the honest angler never 
went a-fishing without inviting his soul to go along with 
him for company. Much of that talk which goes on 
between himself and his imagined pupil under the 



2l8 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

spreading sycamore- tree which shelters them from the 
rain, or in the cool shade of the hawthorn hedge while 
the dew is on the grass, and the air is sweet with the 
fragrance of flowers, and is filled with the singing of 
birds, holding its course as calmly as a trout-brook 
runs through the meadow, is easily seen to be the 
soliloquy of a simple-hearted angler. This is the de- 
lightful charm of that book of instruction in his art, 
" The Compleat Angler ; or, The Contemplative Man's 
Recreation." 

The sub-title of this charming book reveals its true 
character. Angling is indeed the recreation of the 
contemplative man, and such a person was the author. 
It is curious to note in literature that the reflective 
faculties of the mind are exercised earlier than the 
perceptive. The generation to which Plato belonged 
was intensely metaphysical. One cannot fail to observe 
while reading the philosopher how rarely those who 
are admitted to his dialogue show any interest in the 
external world. Socrates, walking out of the city, re- 
marks upon the blossoming trees and the springing 
grass ; but it is with a momentary surprise, and he 
forthwith lapses into his customary discourse upon the 
nature of man. The next generation produced Aris- 
totle, whose genius for dealing with the problems of 
Nature and with the practical affairs of Hfe has not 
been surpassed by the talent of any modern scientist. 
So, in the development of English literature, the con- 
templative Walton naturally precedes the more matter- 
of-fact naturalists of later times. 

But so permanent is the influence of ''The Com- 
pleat Angler," and so gradual has been the transition 
in literary taste and in scientific interest, that it is not 
easy to realize the fact that it is now almost three 



IZAAC WALTON. 219 

hundred years since this gently ruminating author was 
born at Stafford in 1593. The first edition of his book 
appeared in 1653 ; and so great was its popularity that 
five editions of it were called for during the author's 
life. This is a fact of interest to us as indicating the 
good taste of that day, and also because the book 
received careful revision in the several editions, so that 
portions of it were written over more than once. This 
proves the great care and labor which Walton gave to 
all his work. He was the true literary artist, who 
sought to bring his ideal full into the reader's view. 
This appears more fully in those lives he wrote of his 
friends Donne, Hooker, Herbert, Walton, and Sander- 
son. They were all fellow workers with himself upon 
literary themes, and he has made these memoirs what 
he says the virtues of his subjects were, such " that all 
ought to be preserved as copies for posterity to write 
after." They are marked by a tenderness of sentiment 
that reflects the warmth of the writer's heart, and a 
correctness of judgment that proves the integrity of 
his mind. These lines, among others adressed to him 
by his friend Cotton upon the publication of his '' Life 
of Dr. Donne," testify to the author's reputation for 
honesty : — 

" And if your many merits shall have bred 
An abler pen to write your life when dead, 
I think an honester cannot be read," 

Walton disclaims all pretensions to scholarship or to 
literary skill. His works, however, show familiarity 
with the best of ancient literature and the unstudied 
grace of the art of composition. It is pretty clear that 
this was imbibed from discourse with such masters of 
verse and prose as were Donne and Herbert and other 
eminent divines whose friendship it was his good for- 



220 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

tune to enjoy. Examples of finished composition have 
been culled from the " Lives " he wrote by those who 
have wondered where he found the models after which 
he worked. Here is a striking instance of his employ- 
ing the chiastic arrangement of terms. It is from the 
" Life of Dr. Donne." " Thus he began the day and 
ended the night, — ended the restless night, and began 
the weary day in lamentations." This has been aptly 
likened to the beautiful hne in which Orpheus is repre- 
sented mourning for Eurydice, — 

" Te veniente die, te decedente canebat/' 

Thee with the coming of day, with its going thee he 
lamented. Here are certainly features in common 
distinct enough to suggest a pretty close relationship. 
There is, however, no need to look outside Walton's 
own work to find examples of admirable skill in the 
framing of sentences. In this same " Life " he shows 
how the thought may be continued and gradually 
developed by the recurrence of words, blending the 
operations of the mind with the expression of results 
in the most perfect manner : — 

" And now he was so happy as to have nothing to do 
but to die ; to do which, he stood in need of no longer 
time, for he had studied it long, and to so happy a 
perfection that, in a former sickness, he called God 
to witness he was that minute ready to deliver his soul 
into his hands if that minute God would determine his 
dissolution." 

Walton prized above all else for himself and for his 
fellow men a cheerful spirit and a happy temper. He 
spent his long life — longer, no doubt, for the manner 
in which it was spent — in calm contentment, dying in 
1683, at the age of ninety, in his native town of Staf- 



IZAAC WALTON-. 221 

ford. His discourse while coming home from his last 
day's fishing, recommends such a Hfe : — 

" Content will never dwell but in a meek and quiet 
soul. And this may appear if we read and consider what 
our Saviour says in St. Matthew's Gospel, for he there 
says: 'Blessed be the merciful, for they shall obtain 
mercy. Blessed be the pure in heart, for they shall see 
God. Blessed be the poor in spirit, for theirs is the king- 
dom of heaven ; and. Blessed be the meek, for they shall 
possess the earth.' Not that the meek shall not also 
obtain mercy and see God and be comforted, and at last 
come to the kingdom of heaven ; but in the mean time he, 
and he only, possesses the earth, as he goes towards that 
kingdom of heaven, by being humble and cheerful, and 
content with what his good God has allotted him. . . . 
What would a blind man give to see the pleasant rivers, 
and meadows and flowers and fountains that we have 
met with since we met together? I have been told that 
if a man that was born blind could obtain to have his 
sight for but only one hour during his whole life, and 
should at the first opening of his eyes fix his sight upon 
the sun when it was in its full glory, either at the rising 
or setting of it, he would be so transported and amazed 
and so admire the glory of it that he would not willingly 
turn his eyes from that first ravishing object to behold 
all the other various beauties this world could present to 
him. And this and many other like blessings we enjoy 
daily. And for most of them, because they be so com- 
mon, most men forget to pay their praises ; but let not 
us, because it is a sacrifice so pleasing to Him that made 
that sun and us, and still protects us and gives us flowers, 
and showers, and stomachs, and meat, and content, and 
leisure to go a-fishing." 

This sentiment the author may have heard from Dr. 
Donne, who was his pastor for many years, or from 
his poet-friend, Herbert, it chimes in so well with the 



222 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

spirit of his Muse. But the last cause for thankfulness 
— leisure to go a-fishing — is no borrowed sentiment ; 
that proceeds from the abundance of the angler's own 
honest heart. 

Walton's observations upon Nature are not critical 
and scientific, but, in keeping with the spirit of his 
age, they are kindly and appreciative. His remarks 
upon the singing of his favorite birds show how he 
looked upon Nature and listened to her voices. There 
is room here but for a single paragraph. 

" But the nightingale, another of my airy creatures, 
breathes such sweet, loud music out of her litde instru- 
mental throat that it might make mankind to think mira- 
cles are not ceased. He that at midnight, when the very 
laborer sleeps securely, should hear, as I have often, the 
clear airs, the sweet descants, the natural rising and fall- 
ing, the doubling and redoubling of her voice, might well 
be lifted above earth and say, Lord, what music hast 
thou provided for the saints in heaven, when thou afford- 
est bad men such music on earth .? " 

A writer of Walton's genius and temperament could 
scarcely leave the world without contributing to our 
literature some specimens of verse. There remains, 
among others of his pieces, the familiar htde poem en- 
tided " The Angler s Wish," whose hues breathe the 
melody of the woods and fields, and the very fragrance 
of his contemplative life. The piece will be best re- 
called by its admirers from its closing lines : — 

" There bid good morning to next day ; 
There meditate my time away; 
And angle on, and beg to have 
A quiet passage to a welcome grave." 



XXX. 

JAMES SHIRLEY. 

1 596- 1 666. 

THE memory of Shirley lives by the grace of a few 
lines from the lyric portions of his dramas. 
Few readers know him as being, with only two or three 
exceptions, the most voluminous writer of plays in our 
language. The songs and fragments which have kept 
their popularity and which have brought the name of 
this writer down to our day, are rarely associated now 
with the labored tragedies or the dull comedies in 
which they originally appeared. His collected works 
are presented in the six-volume edition of Mr. Dyce, — 
a monument to misapplied talent and patient literary 
drudgery. Whether we look upon this poet as an ex- 
ponent of the decadence of the drama in his day, a 
leader in the ranks of its friends stupidly working its 
ruin, or whether we charge his failure to the disabilities 
under which playwrights had fallen, either view will 
affect our opinion of the man rather than of his poetry. 
It was certainly the misfortune of Shirley that the tra- 
ditions and the vogue of his time led him to adopt the 
form of the drama. This is to be regretted on our 
account because we feel that he could have done 
better work in another line ; it is to be regretted for 
the poet, because he was clearly forced into the service 
of the stage that was already disgraced. In the pro- 



224 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

logue to his first drama, " Love Tricks/' licensed Feb. 
lo, 1624-25, Shirley says, — 

"This play is 
The first-fruits of a Muse that before this 
Never saluted audience, nor doth mean 
To swear himself a factor for the scene." 

Despite this good resolution, Shirley devoted a long 
and busy literary Hfe to the drama. It is pretty clear 
that the poet, well aware of his hmitations, was carried 
away by the current of opinion in literary circles. This 
is not greatly to be wondered at. He was born in 
London in 1596, at the time when Shakspeare and his 
fellows were at the height of their success. He stood 
a chance of having personal recollections of the great- 
est of the Elizabethan poets. This influence was rec- 
ognized by Garrick in a prologue to "The Gamester" 
of Shirley, which Garrick played in 1758, — 

" No paltry thefts disgraced this author's pen ; 
He painted English manners, English men, 
And formed his taste on Shakspeare and old Ben." 

However justly or unjustly Shirley may be charged 
with — or credited with, if that view is preferred — the 
imitating of Shakspeare and Jonson, it is not to be 
expected that so industrious and prolific a writer 
should not adopt certain mannerisms. Perhaps a fond- 
ness for copying his excellences, as well as for repeat- 
ing his faults, may have been in Dryden's mind when 
he directed this sneer at Shadwell in 1682, — 

" Heywood and Shirley were but types of thee, 
Thou last great poet of tautology." 

To find these mannerisms, if Shirley had them, we 
shall need to compare passages evidently elaborated 



JAMES SHIRLEY. 225 

with unusual care. The description given, in "The 
Brothers," of Jacinta at her devotions will serve as one 
such : — 

" Her eye did seem to labor with a tear, 
Which suddenly took birth, but overweighed 
With its own swelling, dropped upon her bosom, 
Which, by reflection of her light, appeared 
As Nature meant her sorrow for an ornament; 
After, her looks grew cheerful, and I saw 
A smile shoot graceful upward from her eyes, 
As if they had gained a victory o'er grief ; 
And with it many beams twisted themselves, 
Upon whose golden threads the angels walk 
To and again from heaven." 

The conception here was dainty enough to suit a 
first-rate artist, but the picture shows too much of 
finish; the details are worked out too carefully for 
effective painting. Evidently Shirley liked this kind 
of work, for in a later play, " Love in a Maze," he 
makes Gerard say to Thornay, — 

" Hast thou not seen the woodbine, 
That honey-dropping tree, and the loved brier 
Embrace with their chaste boughs, twisting themselves, 
And weaving a green net to catch the birds, 
Till it do seem one body, while the flowers 
Wantonly run to meet and kiss each other ? 

That Shirley was not unaware how dangerously near 
this extravagance of language and excess of sentiment 
came to genuine fustian, seems plain from what he has 
one of the characters in the play last quoted say. Ca- 
perwit is a poetaster, and he offends too nearly after 
the poet's own method, — 

" But, lady, be assured my heart is dedicated 
To you, and were all womankind in balance 
With your divinest person, their light scale 

15 



226 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

Would kick the firmament, or, coming down, 
Be lost in the middle region of the air, 
Or be converted to a cloud to weep 
Upon the earth for being so much excelled." 

Had this been written by some other hand, it might 
have been thought a travesty of Shirley's inflated style. 
There is a passage in "The Cardinal," a bit of dia- 
logue between Columbo and Antonio, wherein the poet 
admirably criticises his own faults, — 

" Colu. Ha ! had she 

No symptom in her eye or face of anger.? 

Ant. Serene as I 
Have seen the morning rise upon the spring; 
No trouble in her breath, but such a wind 
As came to kiss and fan the smiling flowers. 

Colu. No poetry ? 

Ant. By all the truth in prose, 

By honesty, and your own honor, sir, 
I never saw her look more calm and gentle." 

The occasion for the admonition and the naturalness 
with which Antonio continues his description after it, 
mark very strongly the poet's idea of what is over- 
wrought. It might have saved him labor and have 
done his reputation no harm had he Hstened to the 
warning, " No poetry ! " 

This play, "The Cardinal," is of the greater interest 
to us because Shirley was a Catholic from the time 
when he began to write ; and we naturally look to this 
play for some reflection of his views. It will be found 
remarkably free from political or religious bias. The 
fact that it was licensed in 1641 may account for this. 
As a specimen of its lofty morality may be taken the 
interview between the cardinal and the duchess, where 
the former reports the grounds upon which the king 
would pardon a murderer. 



JAMES SHIRLEY. 22/ 

" Car. Nor was it rational — 

I speak the king's own language — he should die 
For ta-king one man's breath, without whose valor 
None now had been alive without dishonor, 

Dtich. In my poor understanding, ^t is the crown 
Of virtue to proceed in its own track, 
Not deviate from honor. If you acquit 
A man of murder 'cause he has done brave 
Things in the war, you will bring down his valor 
To a crime." 

There is another passage in this same play which 
will not fail to attract the notice of the reader. It is 
a bit of fun, — a thing quite rare in Shirley's plays. 
What makes it all the more remarkable is that the fun 
is at the expense of the cardinal ; and it naturally raises 
a doubt as to the poet's loyalty to his Church, or a 
suspicion that it may have been brought in to suit 
the temper of the times. The joke is introduced by 
Antonio, — 

" I would this soldier had the cardinal 
Upon a promontory ; with what a spring 
The churchman would leap down ! It were a spectacle 
Most rare to see him topple from the precipice. 
And souse in the salt water with a noise 
To stun the fishes. And if he fall into 
A net, what wonder would the simple seagulls 
Have to draw up the o'ergrown lobster, 
So ready boiled ! " 

Shirley appears to have written with a view to the 
restoration of the stage to popular favor at some day 
not remote. In this hope he was disappointed ; for 
although he lived to 1666, it was only to find that the 
public taste was more corrupt than he had known it, 
and there were baser wits than he ready at its service. 
The discouragement under which he was working in 
1642 is well expressed in his prologue to "The 
Sisters." 



228 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

" Think what ye do ; you see 
What audiences we have, what company 
To Shakspeare comes, whose mirth did once beguile 
Dull hours, and, buskinned, made even sorrows smile ; 
So lovely were the wounds that men would say 
They could endure the bleeding a whole day. 
He has but a few friends lately, — think o' that ; 
He '11 come no more, and others have his fate." 

The failure of Shirley as a dramatist was due first of 
all to his method. Most of his plays are what he calls 
tragi-comedies. The very plan of them violates the 
most essential of the unities. The poet was too well 
read in the ancient drama not to have known the 
canon of the Greek tragedians. If he supposed that 
because Shakspeare could now and then disregard the 
unity of time and of place, it was therefore safe for him 
to try to work out a double purpose in one and the 
same play, it proves either hardihood or folly. It may 
be that at times there is but a step between the sub- 
lime and the ridiculous ; but it is certain that if either 
quality advances over that one step, the other imme- 
diately vanishes. Oftener than otherwise the tragi- 
comedy is tragic only in its author's failure. 

It was intimated at the outset that Shirley's talent 
was rather for writing songs. He is better known now 
for two simple, truthful lines than for all his dramatic 
writings. The closing lines of that song which was a 
favorite with Charles IT, — 

" Only the actions of the just 
Smell sweet and blossom in their dust," 

are imperishably linked with his name. Adopting the 
poet's fine sentiment, we will leave the apparently un- 
studied beauty of his lyric pieces to attest the grace 
and skill he might have commanded in less ambitious 
undertakings. 



XXXI. 

THOMAS BROWNE. 

1605-1682. 

A MANY-SIDED man stands more than one 
chance of being interesting. Browne was such 
a man ; and few readers can have any interest in ram- 
bling over the fields of our literature without desiring 
to fall in with the hearty and gossipy old doctor. He 
has been made familiar enough to most readers in a cer- 
tain way, for his work is almost always taken to illustrate 
the prose of his time, — say from 1640 to 1680. So 
far as the language and the style of the man are con- 
cerned, they do exemplify pretty well the best thought 
and expression of his age. It may be added that they 
mark with almost equal distinctness the literary faults 
that were then committed. It is not, however, to be 
wondered at in the least that one who was educated in 
the time of James I. should become infected with the 
pedantry which then prevailed. 

But it is the subject-matter of Browne's work which 
interests us now. His style will be sufficiently shown 
in whatever paragraphs we may find occasion to quote, 
for all his work is stamped with the individuality 
of the man. No writer, moreover, has better justified 
this quality in his books. " It is not sufficient," he 
says, " for all to hold the common level. Men's names 
should not only distinguish them. A man should be 



230 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

something that all men are not, and individual in 
something beside his proper name. Thus, while it ex- 
ceeds not the bound of reason and modesty, we can- 
not condemn singularity. JVos numerus stmius is the 
motto of the multitude, and for that reason are they 
fools." His writings have much of the strength and 
the clearness of Milton's prose ; but their clearness will 
prove obscurity to such readers as are not familiar with 
the Romanized English of the period. 

Browne's earhest work was his "Religio Medici," a 
Doctor's Religion. The popularity of this book may 
be judged from the fact that within the next hundred 
years fourteen editions of it were published in Eng- 
land. Foreign editions were numerous, and the trea- 
tise was translated into Latin, Dutch, German, French, 
and, it is said, into Italian. Not less plainly is this 
popularity shown in the many imitations of the work 
which appeared during the same time. Within two 
years of its first publication in 1642, it was followed by 
the " Rehgion of a Layman." Soon after this appeared 
the "Religion of a Lawyer," and then followed the 
" Religion of a Peripatetic Philosopher," of a Stoic, of a 
Clergyman, of a Soldier, of a Bookseller, of a Prince, 
of a Freethinker, of a Gentleman, and of a Lady. It 
was not until 18 18 that the public was favored v/ith the 
" Religion of a Christian.'' The latest of these special- 
ized religions that I have noticed is the " Religion of 
a Chemist," pubhshed, I believe, in 1862. 

In his " Rehgio Medici," the author discloses, with 
the most perfect candor and unreserve, the spirit in 
which he discusses matters of faith. He says : " I 
condemn not all things in the Coimcil of Trent, nor ap- 
prove all in the Synod of Dort. In brief, where the 
Scripture is silent, the Church is my text ; where that 



THOMAS BROWNE, 23 1 

speaks, 't is but my comment ; where there is a joint 
silence of both, I borrow not the rules of my religion 
from Rome or Geneva, but from the dictates of my 
own reason." 

Browne was a naturalist, according to the bent of his 
genius and his professional life as a practising physician. 
He belongs to that thoughtful, almost meditative, 
group of writers among whom Bacon, Hobbes and 
Berkeley are his fellows. The author of " Religio 
Medici " would be thought meditative in our day, but 
he is to be judged by a different standard of serious- 
ness. As an example of what was then thought note- 
worthy in that particular respect may be taken the 
account which is given by Bishop Challoner of a clergy- 
man who was executed at Dorchester in 1594. "His 
mortification and recollection of God were so great 
that for three whole years, while his lodging was in a 
room, the window of which looked upon the parish 
church, he had never observed it." 

Although the good doctor was a scientist, he lacked 
the qualities of a naturalist. He discoursed of Nature 
in a most intelHgent way, but without the slightest ap- 
preciation of her social worth, or the faintest sympathy 
with her in her various endeavors. And yet few have 
been able to form, or to express, a clearer notion of 
what Nature really is. ^* I call the effects of Nature the 
works of God, whose hand and instrument she only 
is ; and therefore, to ascribe his actions unto her is 
to devolve the honor of the principal agent upon the 
instrument, — which, if with reason we may do, then 
let our hammers rise up and boast they have built 
our houses, and our pens receive the honor of our 
writings." 

This view of Nature may be taken as fully adequate 



232 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

to all theological uses. It can also be recommended 
to the consideration of scientists as an excellent safe- 
guard against wild vagaries in regard to the methods of 
creation, for it keeps distincdy before one the fact that 
the variation of species is going on under the same 
oversight as the original creation was made, and is em- 
braced in the same general plan. The view has, how- 
ever, too often led those who held it to contemplate 
Nature as something wholly external to themselves. 
They have failed to reahze that along with their own 
life flowed in one current the sum of all life as a single 
pulsation from the throbbing heart of Nature. Cole- 
ridge has come nearer the sentiment of the naturalist 
in his story of the " Ancient Mariner ; " and the last 
words of this old worthy, whose soul had been 

" Alone on a wide, wide sea," 

express that combined tenderness and reverence which 
mark the hterature of Nature since Wordsworth's and 
Coleridge's day : — 

*' He prayeth best who loveth best 
All things both great and small , 
For the dear God who loveth us, 
He made and loveth all." 

In everything except matters of faith, Browne fol- 
lowed strictly the Baconian method of investigation. 
By weighing and by measuring, he brought all points 
of doubt or dispute to the cognizance of the senses. 
This practice became second nature with him, and we 
often find him going to the trouble to secure the ocular 
demonstration of a fact which common reason would 
have taught him as well. The chief work of his Hfe 
was " An Inquiry into Vulgar and Common Errors." 
It is evident that the " Inquiry " was quite to the 



THOMAS BROWNE. 233 

writer's taste. Scarcely anything can be imagined 
more discursive than this was made. It embraces 
subjects belonging to every department of natural 
science. 

The "errors" here confuted were drawn from the 
writings of earlier philosophers, chiefly from the Greeks 
and the Romans. The work is a storehouse of learned 
ignorance which the world ought to have outgrown be- 
fore Browne's day. It is not easy to say what percent- 
age of this lives on to our day, and still more difficult is 
it to decide how far the survival is due to his reputation. 
The poetic vision of Truth, crushed to earth, rising 
again, while wounded Error dies amid her worshippers, 
has not been reahzed to the full in the history of natural 
science. The mere mention of some belief which the 
world has outlived, simply to affix the stamp of dis- 
proof, will often give the old error a new lease of 
existence. In this way, no doubt, Browne's book, ap- 
pearing at the time it did, and having the popularity it 
enjoyed, has been the ultimate source to which could 
be traced many of the popular errors of New England 
in colonial times. 

As an example of how futile, or even injurious, may be 
any attempt to disprove antiquated absurdities, I recall 
a bit of nonsense made use of by way of comparison 
in the " Letters of Major Jack Downing," by Seba 
Smith. The major wished to illustrate certain political 
movements made in Jackson's second Administration. 
He did this by saying that when his mother desired to 
have boneset act as an emetic, she stripped the leaves 
upward from the stalk ; and when it was to serve as a 
purge, its leaves were stripped downwards. Now, it is 
not necessary to suppose that Seba Smith drew this 
ridiculous notion directly from Browne, but it is pretty 



234 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

certain that it came indirectly from that source ; for 
Browne gives it as one of those behefs, " wherein at least 
we cannot but suspend ; . . . that the leaves of cataputia^ 
or spurge, being plucked upward or downward, respec- 
tively, perform their operations by purge or vomit, as 
some have written, and old wives still do preach, is a 
strange conceit, ascribing unto plants positional opera- 
tions, and after the manner of the loadstone." It is a 
little strange that Browne himself did not reflect upon 
the perpetuation of error when he wrote : " The vicious 
examples of ages past poison the curiosity of these 
present, affording a hint of sin unto seducible spirits, 
and soliciting those unto the imitation of them, whose 
heads were never so perversely principled as to invent 
them." 

If Browne had lived in this age, he would have been 
ready to practise vivisection whenever occasion might 
require. He is ready to test with measuring-rule and 
balance every question that arises, and has the candor 
to report results whether they confirm his suspicions or 
prove them unfounded. Here is a paragraph that is 
characteristic of his method and his style : — 

" The assertion that man proportionally hath the 
largest brain, I did, I confess, somewhat doubt, and con- 
ceived it might have failed in birds, especially such as, 
having little bodies, have yet large cranies, and seem to 
contain much brain, as snipes, woodcocks, etc. But 
upon trial I find it very true. The brains of a man, 
Archangelus and Bauhinus observe to weigh four pounds, 
and sometimes five and a half. If, therefore, a man 
weigh a hundred and forty pounds, and his brain but five, 
his weight is twenty -seven times as much as his brain, 
deducting the weight of that five pounds which is allowed 
for it. Now, in a snipe which weighed four ounces, two 
drachms, I find the brains to weigh but half a drachm ; 



THOMAS BRO WNE. 235 

so that the weight of the body, allowing for the brain, 
exceeded the weight of the brain sixty-seven times and 
a half." 

All Browne's work was as remote as possible from 
the affairs of his own time. He says nothing of the 
quarrel between the king and Parliament, which was 
being fought out most bitterly while he was carrying 
on his experimental philosophy. His silence on all 
these points, however, will recall to the reader's mind 
what Tacitus says of Agricola, — that he would have 
lost his recollection as well as his voice, if it had been 
as easy for him to forget as it was to hold his tongue. 
Perhaps it is sometimes the case that circumstances 
which are unfavorable to political activity prove con- 
ducive to literary production in the line of such recon- 
dite studies ; at any rate, it is not infrequently the case 
that the silence of a writer in regard to his own times 
is the most eloquent testimony that he can offer. 



XXXII. 

THOMAS RANDOLPH. 

1605-1635. 

THE career of Randolph was a short one, but it 
was correspondingly brilliant. He died in 
1634, in the thirtieth year of his age. These data class 
him as a fellow of that company of wits which was so 
royally presided over by Ben Jonson. It is curious 
to note the intimacy which grew up between these two 
poets. Their names are often associated in the literary 
history of that time. Jonson patronized many a 
younger poet, but Randolph was clearly a favorite son. 
When the poems of the latter were published by his 
brother, in 1638, the following lines appeared among 
the dedicatory verses. They were signed ^^G. W." 
These initials may have belonged to George Wither. 
Ben Jonson had died the year before this pubhcation, 
and it was now four years after the death of Randolph. 
It is true that the testimony of dedication is to be 
taken at a discount, and yet this is not without weight- 
It is well supported : — 

" Immortal Ben is dead ; and as that ball 
On Ida tossed, so is his crown by all 
The infantry of wit. Vain priests ! that chair 
Is only fit for his true son and heir. 



THOMAS RANDOLPH. 237 

Reach here the laurel. Randolph, 't is thy praise ; 
Thy naked skull shall well become the bays. 
See ! Daphne courts thy ghost ; and, spite of fate, 
Thy poems shall be poet laureate." 

Some years later than this (in 1653), we find George 
Daniel, of Beswick, classing Randolph among others 
vvithj — 

'* The divine Herbert and the Fletchers twain." 

Again, in 1662, Rowland Watkins very pertinently 

asks, — 

" What lands had Randolph, or great Ben, 
That ploughed much paper with his pen ? " 

The literary reputation of Randolph illustrates well 
the fickleness of popular favor. What was the poet's 
standing in his own century is easy to be seen. In the 
following century, which was manifestly inferior in its 
literary productions, Randolph's name had so com- 
pletely dropped out of sight, and his works had so 
dropped out of memory, that collections of the drama 
and the poetry of his age contained not a line of his 
writings, or mention of his name. A later and more 
curious age has done him ample justice. 

Randolph devoted himself to dramatic composition. 
It was natural that the great success of the masters 
who had just preceded him should powerfully stimulate 
a fancy for this kind of work. That same success had 
made it all the more difficult to gain any new laurels in 
that field. More than that, the legislation of the time was 
unfriendly to the stage. The theatres were gradually 
being closed, partly by Act of Parliament, and partly 
by popular sentiment. Upon the latter point, "The 
Muses' Looking-Glass " of Randolph aifords the clear- 
est evidence. Curiously enough, the neighborhood of 
Blackfriars was famous for the residence of many Puri- 



238 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

tans. In this play the poet introduces a Mistress 
Flowerdew, a seller of pins and looking-glasses, talking 
with Master Bird, who was also a Puritan, and sold 
feathers to the players. 

" Mis. Flo. See, brother, how the wicked throng and crowd 
To works of vanity I Not a nook or corner 
In all this house of sin, this cave of filthiness, 
This den of spiritual thieves, but it is stuffed, 
Stuffed, and stuffed full, as is a cushion, 
With the lewd reprobate. 

Bird. Sister, were there not before inns — 
Yes, I will say inns, for my zeal bids me 
Say filthy inns — enough to harbor such 
As travelled to destruction the broad way? 
But they build more and more, — more shops of Satan. 

Mis. Flo. Iniquity aboundeth ; though pure zeal 
Teach, preach, huff, puff, and snuff at it, yet still. 
Still it aboundeth. Had we seen a church, 
A new-built church, erected north and south. 
It had been something worth the wondering at. 

I have heard our vicar 
Call playhouses the colleges of transgression. 
Wherein the seven deadly sins are studied. 

Bird. Why, then, the city will in time be made 
An university of iniquity. 

We dwell by Blackfriars College, where I wonder 
How that profane nest of pernicious birds 
Dare roost themselves there in the midst of us. 
So many good and well-disposed persons. 
Oh, impudence ! 

Mis. Flo. It was a zealous prayer 
I heard a brother make concerning playhouses. 

Bird. For charity, what is 't ? 

Mis. Flo. That the Globe, 

Wherein (quoth he) reigns a whole world of vice, 
Had been consumed ; the Phoenix burnt to ashes ; 
The Fortune whipped ; and the Blackfriars, 
He wonders how it 'scaped demolishing 
I' th' time of reformation; lastly, he wished 



THOMAS RANDOLPH. 239 

The Bull might cross the Thames to the bear garden, 
And there be soundly baited. 

Bird. A good prayer. 

Mis. Flo. Indeed, it something pricks my conscience, 
I come to sell 'em pins and looking-glasses. 

Bird. I have their custom, too, for all their feathers. 
'T is fit that we, which are sincere professors. 
Should gain by infidels." 

So much for the circumstances of his time, which 
were such as to have deterred a prudent man from 
writing for the stage. Perhaps Randolph saw in these 
untoward conditions just the opportunity for him to 
exercise his rather peculiar gift. At any rate, he ap- 
plied himself to the writing of comedies. The follies 
and the excesses of his day furnished him with abund- 
ant material. This he handled in a manner to secure 
him immediate popularity, and to give his work a last- 
ing historical value. He made literature a calling or 
profession. His hfe was too short to test fully the 
wisdom of his choice, but it is gratifying to know that 
he had no occasion to regret it. He seems to have 
contemplated entering some other field than poetry, 
for in his address to the reader of " The Jealous 
Lover," he says, " I do not aim at the name of poet. 
I have always admired the free raptures of poetry ; but 
it is too unthrifty a science for my fortunes, and is 
crept into the number of the seven to undo the other 
six." 

It will throw a good deal of hght on the personal 
history of Randolph to compare, with the declaration 
just above quoted some lines from his poem entitled, 
" On the Inestimable Content he enjoys in the Muses ; 
to those of his Friends that dehort him from Poetry : " 

"O human blindness ! had we eves to see, 
There is no wealth to valiant poetry. 



240 WELLS OF ENGLLSH. 

And yet what want I heaven or earth can yield? 

Methinks I now possess the Elysian field; 

Into my chest the yellow Tagus flows, 

While my plate-fleet in bright Pactolus rows ; 

Th' Hesperian Orchard 's mine, — mine, mine is all ; 

Thus am I rich in wealth poetical. 

"Why strive you, then, my friends, to circumvent 

My soul, and rob me of my best content ? 

Why out of ignorant love counsel you me 

To leave the Muses and my poetry ? 

Which should I leave, and never follow more, 

I might perchance get riches, and be poor." 

Randolph's work shows genius, and it is not at all to 
the poet's discredit that this genius seems immature. 
His youth is sufficient excuse, if any palliation of the 
fault were needed. That he followed his predecessors 
on certain points gives his work even greater interest, 
as it helps to show what was popular and would bear 
treatment under different methods. Take, for in- 
stance, the graveyard scene in "The Jealous Lovers." 
How easy it is to compare this with the part of the 
gravedigger in " Hamlet," The idea is well elabo- 
rated. Thrasymachus asks the old sexton, — 

" Are any soldiers' bones in garrison here ? 

Sex. Fai-th, sir, but few, — they, like poor travellers, 
Take up their inn by chance ; but some there be. 

Thras. Do not those warlike bones in dead of night 
Rise up in arms, and with tumultuous broils 
Waken the dormice that dull peace hath lulled 
Into a lethargy ? Dost not hear 'em knock 
Against their coffins, till they crack and break 
The marble into shivers that entombs them. 
Making the temple shake as with an earthquake. 
And all the statues of the gods grow pale, 
Affrighted with the horror t 

Sex. No such matter." 

After much more banter of this kind about the 
soldiers, one of the company asks the sexton, — 



^1 



THOMAS RANDOLPH. 24 1 

" Do not the ashes of deceased poets, 
Inspired with sacred fury, carol forth 
Enthusiastic raptures ? " 

And another asks the old sexton these questions, 
among many others of about the same tenor, — 

" Do not they rise out of their shrouds to read 
Their epitaphs ? And if they like 'era not, 
Expunge 'em, and write new ones ? " 

The sexton meanwhile picks up a skull which he 
says was once a "poetical noddle." After apostro- 
phizing the poet as he was in hfe, the sexton goes on 
to speak of him as he has been known to this landlord 
of the dead from the time when he became a lodger 
in these quarters. 

" He has been a tenant of mine these seven years, and 
in all that while I never heard him rail against the times, 
or complain of the neglect of learning. Melpomene and 
the rest of the Muses have a good time on 't now that he 
is dead ; for while he lived he ne'er left calling upon 'em. 
He was buried (as most of the tribe) at the charge of the 
parish, and is happier dead than alive ; for he has now as 
much money as the best in the company, and yet has left 
off the poetical way of begging, called borrowing." 

Later on in the scene Phryne asks the sexton, — 

" Pray, sir, how does Death deal with the ladies ? . . . 
Sex. Death is a blunt villain, madam ; he makes no dis- 
tinction betwixt Joan and my lady. 

But perhaps the most comical of all this rather grew- 
some fun is the passage in which the sexton gives a 
pleading such as a lawyer, whose skull he has picked 
up, would have made before the court for having been 
robbed of his grave-clothes. A sample of this badinage 
will be relished. 

16 



242 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

"This man — said I a man? — this monster, rather; 
but monster is too easy a name — this devil, this incarnate 
devil, having lost all honesty, and abjured the profession 
of virtue, robbed (a sin in the action) — But who ? The 
dead! What need I aggravate the fault? The naming 
the action is sufficient to condemn him, — I say he robbed 
the dead. The dead ! Had he robbed the hving, it had 
been more pardonable ; but to rob the dead of their 
clothes, the poor, impotent dead, that can neither card, 
nor spin, nor make new ones, oh, 't is most audacious 
and intolerable ! " 

It is to be observed that Randolph accepted the 
hard conditions under which playwrights of his day 
were compelled to work, with a better grace than most 
of his fellows. He even makes concessions to the 
intolerant spirit of the age. He acted upon that cau- 
tion which he gave, " Take heed, my wit of the world ! 
this is no age for wasps ; 't is a dangerous touchy age, 
and will not endure the stinging." The temper in 
which he worked is shown most clearly in " The 
Muses' Looking-Glass." He had evidently accom- 
plished his purpose when he led Mistress Flowerdew 
to admit — 

" Saints may want something of perfection." 

The interview between this lady and Bird, which 
constitutes the closing scene of the play, indicates 
what was the author's aim. 

" Mis. Flo. This ignorance even makes religion sin, 
Sets zeal upon the rack, and stretches her 
Beyond her length. Most blessed looking-glass. 
That didst instruct my blinded eyes to-day ! 
I might have gone to hell the narrow way ! 

Bird. Hereafter I will visit comedies, 
And see them oft ; they are good exercises I 



THOMAS RANDOLPH. 243 

I '11 teach devotion now a milder temper. 

Not that it shall lose any of her heat 

Or purity, but henceforth shall be such 

As shall burn bright, although not blaze so much." 

The conciliatory tone of Randolph's Muse is all the 
more pronounced when his comedies are read along 
with those of Cartwright and others of his contempo- 
raries. The fairness of the poet's judgment in that 
age of bitter intolerance is set in a strong light in these 
lines concerning him by Owen Feltham : — • 

" Had he said thus, — that discreet zeal might stand, 
Both with the Jesuit and the Puritan, 
'T had been believed." 

He had to battle with the spirit of controversy at 
home and abroad. Even here in the colonies the 
good fight of faith and the bad fight of fanaticism 
were fought out with spiritual weapons, but with angry 
words. This harshness of wrangling is referred to in 
" Down with Knavery," where one of the characters 
declares, **A11 the cudgels in Christendom, Kent, or 
New England shall never make me quiet." 



XXXIII. 

THOMAS FULLER. 

1608-1661. 

THERE are reasons ample and abundant enough, 
over and above the attractions of style and 
interest of matter, that should recommend the works of 
Thomas Fuller to readers of New England. Born in 
1608 and dying in 1661, he was the contemporary of 
those who first settled these colonies. Though loyal 
to his bishop and the king, he was also loyal to what 
he conceived to be the truth in relation to the Church 
and the State. His testimony on all points of difference 
between Churchman and Puritan, between Cavalier 
and Roundhead, is none the less valuable on this ac- 
count. We have all we need to correct any uncon- 
scious bias of his judgment. 

This garrulous and gossipy writer reveals a great 
deal of himself, and this has much in common with 
what the busy and taciturn colonists disclose in their 
scanty records. They were of close kindred in their 
nature. There is a peculiar quality of New England 
humor which has lasted to the present day, and which 
we call "dryness." The term is evidently borrowed 
from the vintner's vocabulary, along with so many others 
belonging to the department of taste. This quality we 
detect everywhere in Fuller. It differs from the wit in 
" Hudibras" in being always unstudied. It is also 



THOMAS FULLER. 245 

marked by such tenderness of feeling as never to 
wound the most sensitive. Fuller's books had great 
popularity in their day, running through four or five 
editions in rapid course. They must have been read 
and enjoyed by many of the bookish men in the 
colonies, and they clearly had their effect upon our 
early literature. 

Some specimens of Fuller's manner will save at- 
tempting any description. It will be seen at once 
that no sacredness aifords sanctuary from his pen. 
Speaking of the law reports of Sir Edward Coke, he 
remarks : " If the prophet himself, living in an incred- 
ulous age, found cause to complain, * Who hath be- 
lieved our report?' it need not seem strange that our 
licentious times have afforded some to shake the au- 
thenticity of the 'reports^ of any earthly judge." In 
the same sportive mood he refers to William Bright- 
man's " Comment on the Revelation " : " Sure I am 
that Time and Mr. Brightman will expound the hard- 
est places in the Revelations ; but what credit is to 
be given to the latter alone, I will not engage." The 
more grave the subject, oftentimes the greater the 
levity with which it was treated. From his place in 
the pulpit, the divine was familiar with exhibitions of 
caste feeling in the pews. Writing of Yarmouth in 
the time of the plague, he does not let the opportunity 
go by to rebuke the weakness : " Though the church 
(and that very large) could never hold their living, the 
churchyard could contain the dead ; seeing persons alive 
will not be pressed in their pews so close as corpses 
may be crowded together in their graves." He deals 
a no less effective blow at the Roundheads for having 
disfigured the churches, under the plea of destroying 
pagan symbols : " No zealot reformer (whilst Egypt was 



246 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

Christian) demolished the pyramids under the notion 
of pagan monuments." 

True to his instinct, Fuller never omits a joke to 
save his own reputation. What could be more absurd 
than his reason for describing a Norfolk man as a 
mariner? '' We place him among seamen because find- 
ing first his mention in Hakluyt's Voyages, and salt 
water is the proper element of the pen of that author." 
His " Pisgah-sight of Palestine " was accompanied by 
maps and plans so incorrect in their drawing that 
Fuller felt compelled to apologize for their badness ; 
but then in his dedication of the book to Esme Stuart, 
who was then scarcely a year old, he took occasion to 
recommend these illustrations to the notice of his 
child-patron "until such time as he can read." 

Fuller's attempts at verse have fortunately escaped 
notice. How they ever happened to see the hght 
might have remained a mystery had he not remarked 
upon the epitaph of John Kite. In this we see upon 
what principle the publication was justified. " These, 
if made three hundred years ago, had been excusable ; 
but such midnight verses are abominable, — made, as 
it appears, in the dawning of good learning and pure 
language. Yet, because some love poetry, either very 
good or very bad, that if they cannot learn from it, 
they may laugh at it, they are here inserted." Any 
lack of success in this kind of writing, however, cannot 
be charged to a lack of fancy. This was exuberant 
and sportive, as seen in his mention of a fellow-poet, 
Thomas Randolph : " The Muses may seem not only to 
have smiled, but to have been tickled at his nativity." 

The popularity which Fuller enjoyed in early New 
England can be seen from frequent quotations from 
his books in the pamphlets of that day. Some of his 



THOMAS FULLER. 247 

sayings have lived on beyond the memory of his books. 
To apply as fair a test as possible, it may safely be ques- 
tioned whether one out of five of the schoolmasters 
who have quoted this for the benefit of their charges 
could refer it to the account of "the good school- 
master " in Fuller's '' Holy State." " All the whetting 
in the world can never set a razor's edge on that 
which hath no steel in it." But a survival in speech, 
unconnected with any sentiment, is better evidence on 
this point. Nothing was more familiar to the writer 
when a boy than to hear the remark when a heavy 
storm set in, " This is a tanned toast," or " It will be a 
tan-toaster." He never heard the expression except 
in his home, and could not trace it to its original 
until he read Fuller's *' English Worthies." Then it 
was plain enough in what way this had travelled from 
Essex in Old England to Essex in New England. 
The circumstance related is that " the Lord Treasurer 
Burleigh (who always consulted artificers in their own 
art) was indoctrinated by a cobbler in the true tanning 
of leather. This cobbler, taking a slice of bread, 
toasted it by degrees at some distance from the fire, 
turning many times, till it became brown, and hard on 
both sides. ' This, my lord,' saith he, ' we good fel- 
lows call a tanned tost, — done so well that it will last 
many morning's draughts ; and leather thus leisurely 
tanned and turned many times in the fat [vat] will 
prove serviceable, which otherwise will quickly fleet and 
rag out.' " The mention of many morning's draughts " 
will remind the reader that in England, in Fuller's 
time, a decoction of toasted crusts of rye bread was 
the common beverage at breakfast. Its use is not 
yet wholly lost to the knowledge of New England 
housewives. 



248 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

Aside from the popularity of Fuller's books here, 
their author must have been known personally to 
many of the colonists. '^ God in his providence," 
says he, " fixed my nativity in a remarkable place. I 
was born at Aldwinkle, in Northamptonshire, where 
my father was the painful preacher of St. Peter's. 
This village was distanced one good mile west from 
Achurch, where Mr. Brown, founder of the Brownists, 
did dwell, whom out of curiosity when a youth I often 
visited." The Brownists were the original " Sepa- 
ratists," and the name came to be generally saddled 
upon the Puritans. These, however, resented the 
imputation. A common phrase in their petitions dur- 
ing the reigns of James and Charles is " Brownists 
falsely so called." The Independents took their rise 
from the Brownist churches. Fuller's early home 
was near the home of Brownist doctrines; his early 
schoolmaster was eminent in Brownist circles ; his later 
settlements in London and in Essex were in close 
neighborhood to the Puritans, who were fast leaving 
for New England. And not only neighborly but 
hostile relations must have made the Royalist parson 
well known to the clergy who were so fast rem.oving 
to the colonies. While Fuller was chaplain of the 
king's forces in Exeter, Hugh Peters was serving in 
the same capacity with the Parliament troops watching 
that place. 

But the good-nature of Fuller led him to speak of 
the Roundheads with almost unvarying kindness. One 
passage alone betrays any bitterness. In a sermon 
preached in 1642 he said: "I have heard (when a 
child) of a lawless church ; sure these, if they might 
have their will, would have a lawless church and a 
gospelless church too ! " His more usual tone, even 



THOMAS FULLER. 249 

when preaching before the king at Oxford, was that of 
calm moderation. In the first of his sermons before 
his Majesty he was bold enough to express the earnest 
hope that there were none "so wicked and wilful as to 
deny many good men (though misled), engaged on 
both sides ; " and he censured those who uncharitably 
denied any good in that party which they disHked. 
This moderation he held to through life. In his " Con- 
templations in Better Times, 1660," he writes : " As for 
other sects, we grudge not that gifts be bestowed upon 
them. Let them have toleration (and that, I assure 
you, is a great gift indeed), and be permitted peace- 
ably and privately to enjoy their consciences both in 
opinions and practices." 

This remark upon toleration leads up to observations 
of his which no student of our colonial history can 
afford to neglect. Speaking of missionary work among 
the Indians, he says : " I have not heard of many fish 
[understood in a mystical sense] caught in New Eng- 
land." Again, reflecting upon the troubles at home, he 
adds : " The fault is not in the religion, but in the pro- 
fessors of it, that of late we have been more unhappy 
in kiUing of Christians than happy in converting of 
pagans." And alluding to the " favorable inclination " 
of the gospel to verge westward, he says : " This putteth 
us in some hopes of America, in God's due time. God 
knows what good effects to them our sad war may 
produce ; some may be frighted therewith over into 
those parts (being more willing to endure American 
than English savages), or out of curiosity to see, neces- 
sity to live, frugality to gain, may carry rehgion over 
with them into this barbarous country. Only God for- 
bid we should make so bad a bargain as wholly to 
exchange our gospel for their gold, our Saviour for their 



250 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

silver, fetch thence lignum vitae, and deprive ourselves 
of the tree of life in Ueu thereof. May not their 
planting be our supplanting, their founding in Christ 
our confusion ; let them have of our light, not all our 
Hght ; let their candle be kindled at ours, ours not 
removed to them." 

There can be no doubt that Fuller's pohtical affilia- 
tions lessened his chances for remembrance in New 
England. He was the contemporary of Walton. They 
were choice spirits and honored spirits, but the gentle 
angler is the more familiar personage to-day. This 
advantage he has by grace of the subjects which he 
handled. Unusual indulgence is always shown the 
narrator of fishing experiences, while Fuller had to 
address a testy and belligerent public. It is pleasant 
to know what Walton thought of the performance of 
his friend. Soon after the " Church History " came 
out, he called upon the author at Waltham, when 
Fuller asked him what he thought of the work himself, 
and what reception it had met with among his friends. 
The reply was characteristic. Walton thought "it 
should be acceptable to all tempers, because there 
were in it shades for the warm, and sunshine for those 
of cold constitution." 



XXXIV. 

WILLIAM CARTWRIGHT. 
1611-1643. 

IF one were writing of English literature for English 
readers, and for such alone, there would be found 
but rare occasion for even a reference to Cartwright or 
his work. He seems to have dropped entirely out of 
modern thought and out of the notice of the world. 
The reputation which he made in his short life calls 
upon us for no examination to find upon what basis it 
rested, inasmuch as that reputation is now as dead as 
the Roman invader of Britain. We may wonder, in- 
deed, that a poet whose life was embraced within the 
limits of 161 1 and 1643, following as he did imme- 
diately upon the brilliant careers of the Elizabethan 
poets, and devoting himself to dramatic composition, in 
which field his predecessors had achieved their splen- 
did success, should have gained any reputation at all 
upon such inferior work. If we were left to judge by 
inference from the praises bestowed upon this poet, we 
should justly conclude that England had never known 
a drama that was worth the reading. And these 
compliments were paid by the poets of his day, from 
Ben Jonson downwards. The edition of Cartwright's 
collected works published in 165 1 was prefaced with 
fifty-two contributions of commendatory verses. They 
are all laudatory, of course ; the interest of the pub- 



252 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

lisher would admit no others. Many of these pieces 
are superior in merit and in interest to the poems they 
introduce. These must contain some portion of honest 
feehng and honest opinion. There is no question as 
to the high estimation in which Cartwright was then 
held. This surprising fact in literary history argues a 
great decline in English life, from the reign of Elizabeth 
to the reign of Charles. 

Cartwright enjoyed the distinction at any rate, if it 
was not the advantage as well, of being playwright 
to the court at the time when the theatres were closed 
to the populace. Performances had become rare and 
very select entertainments. His " Royal Slave," a 
tragi-comedy. as he calls it, was first presented to the 
king and queen at Oxford, Aug. 30, 1636. After the 
king's departure from the town it was performed be- 
fore the university ; and still later on it was a second 
time presented to their Majesties at Hampton Court. 
This was among the last of theatrical performances 
until after the Restoration. It is very little of light 
that the play throws upon the political situation of the 
time. Perhaps very litde was to be expected ; the 
situation was at that time too ticklish for any decisive 
opinion to be expressed. 

In the prologue to the university, however, — which 
was written expressly for the play being acted before 
that body, — there is a hint that the residence of the 
court at Oxford was not wholly agreeable to that 
community, — 

** So we (the stage being aired now, and the court 
Not smelt) hope you'll descend unto our sport, 
And think it no great trespass if we do 
Sin o'er our trifle once again to you." 



WILLIAM CARTVVRIGHT. 253 

An occasional passage in the play itself reveals some- 
thing of the sentiment of the writer and of his party. 
In this speech of the Royal Slave there can be no 
doubt as to the impression intended to be given. The 
argument is such as must go along with the doctrine of 
the divine right of kings, — 

" Kings' pleasures are more subtle than to be 
Seen by the vulgar ; they are men, but such 
As ne'er had any dregs, or if they had. 
Dropped 'em as they were drawing up from out 
The grovelling press of mortals." 

That which gives to the writings of Cartwright a 
special interest to readers in America is the view which 
his plays disclose of the religious and political condi- 
tion of England at the very time when these colonies 
were being settled, and when their character and poHcy 
were being definitely fixed. The poet gave up his ap- 
pointment as proctor in the university, and took orders 
in the Church. It is quite plain from his writings, if 
we did not have abundant evidence to the fact from 
other sources, that there was a current of feeling in the 
universities at that time setting strong towards the 
Puritan cause. His annoyance at this is shown in 
more than one passage. In the following, from the 
description of a posset prepared for " Sir John," the 
fling is given at short range : — 

" The ingredients were diverse, and most of them new, — 
No virtue was judged in an ancient thing ; 
In the garden of Leyden some part of them grew, 
And some did our own universities bring." 

So far as the allusion to Holland is concerned, we 
need not trouble ourselves greatly about it. Such hits 
are given by most English writers of the period. They 



254 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

were indulged in as a cheap display of wit, and the 
animus was as likely to be commercial jealousy as 
political or rehgious feehng. It is, however, to be 
observed that Cartwright's shafts are aimed at the 
Dutch writers. He finds occasion, even in his verses 
"On the Great Frost of 1634," to repeat the covert 
sneer, — 

" Our very smiths now work not ; nay, what 's more, 
Our Dutchmen write but five hours, and give o'er." 

It is in "The Ordinary," however, — a comedy 
which appears to have been written after the poet left 
the university for the Church, — that the intemperate 
zeal of Cartwright is conspicuous. The prologue and 
the epilogue which go along with this play may be 
construed as evidence that the comedy was somewhere 
and at some time presented. It was certainly com- 
posed with a view to its being put upon the stage. It 
contains the only mention in Cartwright of the Com- 
monwealth. One of the scoundrels of the play says to 

his fellows, — 

" The day 
Will come, perhaps, when that the Commonwealth 
May need such men as we." 

If this be taken as evidence that the comedy was 
written after the Commons had taken a stand against 
the king, then it is not likely that Cartwright ever saw 
it performed. 

The allusions to the Puritans are both open and 
covert. They are to be met with in the dialogue and 
in the songs. One of these latter is too broadly comic 
for modern taste. It is sung by the curate of the play, 
and is introduced by the precautionary remark, — 

" Hold ! a blow I '11 have, 
One jerk at th' times, wrapped in a benediction." 



WILLIAM CARTWRIGHT. 255 

The character of this " jerk at th' times " can be judged 
by these stanzas : — 

" For an error that 's the flock's, 
Name Mr. Paul, but urge St. Knox; 
And at every reformed dinner 

Let cheese come in and preaching. 
And by that third course teaching. 
Confirm an unsatisfied sinner. 

" Thence grow up to hate a king 
And defy an offering, 
And learn to sing what others say ; 

Let Christ-tide be thy fast, 

And Lent thy good repast, 
And regard not an holy day." 

The above advice is given to one who proposes to 
become a clergyman. The *'jerk" which the poet 
has at John Knox, and at the reputation this Reformer 
had among the Presbyterians, would be quite enough 
to condemn his wit, were it not more likely than other- 
wise that the idea was borrowed. 

The Puritans are most frequently rallied upon their 
opposition to the use of instrumental music in worship. 
One of the gamesters, telhng what use he will make of 
his money when he becomes rich, says, — 

" I '11 send some forty thousand unto Paul's, 
Build a cathedral next in Banbury, 
Give organs to each parish in the kingdonij 
And so root out the unmusical elect." 

Together with their dislike for Church music was 
noticed, with an equal sneer, the whining tone assumed 
by the Puritan divines in their pulpit exercises. We 
find it in the Hne already quoted, — 

" And learn to sing what others say." 



256 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

The clerk says to the preacher, — 

" Good Israel Inspiration, hold your tongue ! 
It makes far better music when you nose 
Sternhold's or Wisdom's metres." 

In the same scene between the clerk and the parson 
there is a hit at the long sermons of the Puritan 
divines. The clerk says, — 

" Set up an hour-glass, he '11 go on until 
The last sand make his period." 

To our view, the reply takes the point off this shaft 
very neatly. That the dramatist did not see this, may 
be explained on the score of his being blinded by 
prejudice. He makes the parson say with dignity, 

" 'T is my custom, 
I do approve the calumny ; the words 
I do acknowledge, but not the disgrace." 

So much, in a general way, for the feeling which the 
Cavalier clergy entertained towards the Puritans at 
home. With what gracious leave-taking the Puritans 
were despatched to these shores, as with a benediction, 
is discovered from the last scene in this play. There 
are but three characters upon the stage, — the three 
choicest villains of the lot. They have assaulted an 
officer, and are planning their escape from England. 
With this explanation, the dialogue will be plain 
enough. 

*' Shape. Lie thou there, watchman. 
How the knave that 's looked for 
May often lurk under the officer ! 
Invention, I applaud thee ! 

Hearsay. London air, 

Methinks, begins to be too hot for us. 

Slicer. There is no longer tarrymg here ; let 's swear 
Fidelity to one another and 
So resolve for IVew England. 

Hear. 'T is but getting 



I 



WILLIAM CARTVVRIGHT. 25/ 

A little pigeon-hole Reformed ruflf. 

Sli. Forcing our beards into th' orthodox bent. 

Sha. Nosing a little treason 'gainst the king ; 
Bark something at the bishops, and we shall 
Be easily received. 

Hear. No fitter place. 

They are good, silly people, — souls that will 
Be cheated without trouble ; one eye is 
Put out with zeal, th' other with ignorance, 
And yet they think they 're eagles. 

Sha. We are made 

Just fit for that meridian ; no good work 's 
Allowed there ; faith, faith is that they call for, 
And we will bring it 'em. 

Sli. What language speak they "i 

Hear. English, and now and then a root or two 
Of Hebrew, which we '11 learn of some Dutch skipper 
That goes along with us this voyage. Now 
We want but a good wind; the brethren's sighs 
Must fill our sails ; for what Old England won't 
Afford, New England will. You shall hear of us 
By the next ship that comes for proselytes. 
Each soil is not the good man's country only ; 
Nor is the lot his to be still at home. 
We '11 claim a share, and prove that Nature gave 
This boon, as to the good, so to the knave." 

When Cartwright's poems were collected and printed 
for Humphrey Moseley in 165 1, the stationer took 
occasion to prefix to the edition a few lines of his own, 
in which he says of the work, — 

" I 'm sure 't is new, unsullied, and unworn, 
Though writ before these angry lays were born." 

The poet had been dead eight years ; and if the 
play from which we have just quoted does not indicate 
hard feelings, — a deep and bitter hatred on the part of 
both Church and State, — then it is not an easy matter 
to realize what must have been the nature and the 
force of that sentiment which was prevailing in 1651. 
17 



XXXV. 

RICHARD CRASHAWE. 

1616-1650. 

T'HE literature of a people at any period must 
strongly reflect the thought and sentiment then 
prevailing among them. This will appear with striking 
clearness by comparing the poetry of the brilliant Eliza- 
bethan era with that of the first half of the seventeenth 
century. In the earlier age the drama was at the 
height of its popularity. Never before in England had 
any branch of letters engaged such brilliant talent, with 
the promise of so great fame. The praise of the people 
made possible those miracles of art. Before 1650 the 
theatres were closed and the dramatic Muse was 
banished the realm ; Puritanic thought shaped the man- 
ners of society and the legislation of the State. 

The lyric poets under Queen Elizabeth sang their 
gay, light-hearted songs with an abandon that reminds 
one of the troubadours and minnesingers of younger 
times and of sunnier lands. More of that light music 
than is often guessed was native to Italy or Spain. It 
had come, as birds of passage come in spring, welcome 
to a northern land. The exotic was cultivated with 
success. Sonnets, odes, and songs were produced in 
varied key, and of every measure. The refrain was in 
comparison a monody. The inspiration of poetic feel- 
ing was replaced by the glowing fervor of religious zeal 



RICHARD CRASH A WE. 259 

The Muse assumed a more serious tone and a statelier 
movement. The succeeding generation delighted in 
psalms and elegies, and odes on sacred themes. The 
contrast in literature as we pass from one century to 
the other is strong and clear ; and it is highly sug- 
gestive of a coming change in the social, political, and 
religious life of the people. 

The opening of the seventeenth century brought in 
the era of Puritanic thought in England ; it was also 
the period of the early colonization of America. This 
coincidence is readily understood, for the events stand 
related as cause and effect. It is a circumstance, how- 
ever, which lends to the literature of that time a world 
of interest ; for in those pages we shall find revealed 
many an inspiration of conduct which founded these 
colonies and has grown into the intellectual and social 
Hfe of our own day. The literature of the first half of 
that century bears the stamp of the sincerity and earnest- 
ness with which the people thought and felt. It bears, 
moreover, many a trace of its lineage in the strange 
conceits with which both its prose and its poetry 
abound. These were survivals from the former cen- 
tury, and they often served as an ill-fitting garb for the 
new sentiments they were made to clothe. 

Of the writers who were contributing to Enghsh lit- 
erature at the time when the colonies were receiving 
the strongest impress from maternal influence, no one is 
more deserving of our attention than Richard Cra- 
shawe. He was born, according to Mr. Gosse, in 
1 61 2, though earHer authorities make the date of this 
event as late as 16 16, and he died in 1650 ; so that his 
life was comprised within that half-century during 
which the leading spirits of the New England colonies 
came over. His father, William Crashawe, was a 



260 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

divine of some note, and of strong Puritan proclivities, 
as may be inferred from a volume he published which 
bore the sub-title of " The Bespotted Jesuit." He left 
a more amiable index to his character in his book 
plate which bore the legend, " Deo Servire est Reg- 
nare," — Bondage to God is sovereignty. The son 
was educated at Cambridge, taking the master's degree 
at that university in 1638. He became a fellow of his 
college, and kept his place until 1644, when, with 
Beaumont and many others who sympathized with the 
cause of the king, he was ejected, and the places were 
filled by Puritans. It will be easily understood that 
many causes were now operating to draw men away 
from the Anglican Church. It is worthy of notice that 
of all the scholars and authors of that period, Crashawe 
was the only one who went over to the Catholics. 
Doubtless it is for this reason, chiefly, that his poems 
— though breathing a spirit of true piety and fervent 
devotion — were received with so little favor at first, 
and have since found so small space open to them in 
the collected works of British poets. 

Cowley in lamenting the death of his friend and 
fellow-poet, refers to that remarkable apostasy in these 
lines of delicate tenderness, — 

" Pardon, my Mother-Church, if I consent 
That angels led him when from thee he went." 

It may well be granted that angels led the poet to 
the Church which was not of his fathers, and that they 
would as cheerfully have led him to that of the Puri- 
tans. In the case of such a man as Crashawe, angels 
go wherever he goes, they tarry where he tarries, and 
where he makes his abiding-place, there they dwell 
with him also. Angels led him, we may well believe ; 
but before he left the bosom of his Mother-Church he 



RICHARD CRASH AWE. 26 1 

must have felt that a demon was drivmg him forth. 
We calculate the path a moving body will pursue in 
space by compounding the forces acting upon it ; but 
we know that if the points at which the same forces 
are applied are shifted on the surface of the projectile, 
it may be sent in an exactly opposite direction. The 
case is much the same with men, as to the course of 
conduct they will adopt, as it is with projectiles. 
Clearly, Crashawe was impelled on the side of his 
poetic sensibilities. A difference of temperament 
rather than of aims separated him from the compan- 
ionship of brother-poets. 

The English poems of Crashawe were first published 
in 1646. They are divided into three classes. 
*' Steps to the Temple " remind the reader of George 
Herbert, who belongs to the same generation, not less 
by their subjects and handling than by the title their 
author gave them. They are devotional poems, glow- 
ing with intense feeling, such as marks Italian and 
Spanish ecclesiastical literature and art of the preced- 
ing century. 

It is not easy to quote from the devotional and 
sacred poems and do the poet justice. His conceits 
are so involved, running on through such variety of 
form, that the author's work can only be judged as a 
whole, and any attempt to show its merits or defects 
from a few specimen verses will be vain. As an ex- 
ample of Crashawe's manner, these lines from "A 
Hymn of the Nativity, sung by the Shepherds," will 
serve a good purpose : — 

" Gloomy night embraced the place 
Where the noble Infant lay ; 
The Babe looked up and showed his face : 
In spite of darkness, it was day. 



262 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

It was thy day, sweet, and did rise, 
Not from the east, but from thy eyes. 

" Winter chid aloud, and sent 

The angry North to wage his wars ; 
The North forgot his fierce intent. 

And left perfumes instead of scars. 
By those sweet eyes' persuasive powers, 
Where he meant frosts he scattered flowers." 

Along with this language of shepherds one will read 
with pleasure a chorus from " A Hymn sung as by the 
Three Kings," — 

" Look up, sweet Babe, look up, and see ! 
For love of thee, 
Thus far from home, 
The East is come 
To seek herself in thy sweet eyes ! " 

These passages will give a good idea of the poet's 
inventive faculty and ingenious handling. They will 
also show how completely he was master of the lyric 
metres of the South. So musical is the rhythm of this 
little chorus that one fain listens to the kings as they 
sing each in his turn, — 

*' First. Farewell the world's false light; 
Farewell the white 
Egypt ; a long farewell to thee. 
Bright idol, black idolatry, — 
The dire face of inferior darkness kissed 
And courted in the pompous mask of a more 
specious mist. 

" Second. Farewell, farewell, 

The proud and misplaced gates of hell, 
Perched in the morning's way, 
And double-gilded as the doors of day ; 
The deep hypocrisy of death and night, 
More desperately dark, because more bright. 

" Third. Welcome, the world's sure way, 
Heaven's wholesome ray ! " 



RICHARD CRASHAWE. 263 

In another of his sacred poems, which bears the 
title "The Dear Bargain," the poet's song assumes a 
tone which reminds the reader of much that has been 
said of late about the unfeeling cruelty of Nature : 

" Will the gallant Sun 

E'er less glorious run ? 
Will he hang down his golden head, 
Or e'er the sooner seek his western bed, 

Because some foolish fly 

Grows wanton, and will die ? 



" What if my faithless soul and I 
Would needs fall in 
With guilt and sin, — 
What did the Lamb that he should die ? 
What did the Lamb that he should need. 
When the wolf sins, himself to bleed ? " 

The author varies slightly the thought and changes 
the measure in his hymn, '' Dies Irse, Dies Ilia," — 

" Dear, remember in that day 
Who was the cause Thou cam'st this way ; 
Thy sheep was strayed, and thou wouldst be 
Even lost thyself in seeking me ! 

" Shall all that labor, all that cost 
Of love, and even that loss, be lost ? 
And this loved soul judged worth no less 
Than all that way and weariness ? " 

The closing lines of " The Flaming Heart," dedi- 
:ated to Saint Theresa, will show to what heights of 
ecstatic feeling the Muse of Crashawe would mount : 

" O thou undaunted daughter of desires. 
By all thy dower of lights and fires, 
By all the eagle in thee, all the dove, 
By all thy lives and deaths of love, 
By thy large draughts of intellectual day, 
And by thy thirsts of love more large than they ; 



c 



264 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

By all brim-filled bowls of fierce desire, 

By thy last morning's draught of liquid fire, 

By the full kingdom of that final kiss 

That seized thy parting soul and sealed thee his ; 

By all the heavens thou hast in him, 

Fair sister of the seraphim ; 

By all of him we have in thee, — 

Leave nothing of myself in me ; 

Let me so read thy life that I 

Unto all life of mine may die ! " 

The secular poems of Crashawe — entitled " The 
Delights of the Muses," and written in his youth, from 
1631-34 — are more nearly in the vein of popular 
thought at the present time, and will give a better im- 
pression of the author's genius than his later and more 
elaborate work. This tribute to " The Morning " can- 
not fail to please so long as English poetry shall con- 
tinue to be read : — 

" Bright lady of the morn, pity doth lie 
So warm in thy soft breast, it cannot die ; 
Have mercy, then, and when he next doth rise, 
Oh, meet the angry god, invade his eyes, 
And stroke his radiant cheeks. One timely kiss 
Will kill his anger and revive my bliss. 
So to the treasure of thy pearly dew 
Thrice will I pay three tears, to show how true 
My grief is ; so my wakeful lay shall knock 
At the Oriental gates, and duly mock 
The early lark's shrill orisons to be 
An anthem at the day's nativity; 
And the same rosy-fingered hand of thine 
That shuts night's dying eyes, shall open mine." 

The somewhat bold reflection of Lucretius in these 
lines detracts not at all from their writer's claim to 
credit for poetic fancy and artistic handling. We can- 
not well help admitting that the neglect of such work 
for two centuries has greatly delayed the perfection of 



RICHARD CR AS HA WE. 26$ 

English verse. The world will slowly, but yet surely, 
come to own Crashawe as a true child of Nature, with 
a strong filial love for the mother who bore him. 

Soon after his ejection from Peterhouse at Cam- 
bridge, the poet went to Paris, — never to revisit 
his native country. Here, in 1646, were first pub- 
lished his English poems. Through the influence of 
his friend and fellow-poet, Cowley, who was secretary 
to the exiled queen, Henrietta Maria, he obtained of 
her Majesty a letter to Cardinal Palotta at Rome. Cra- 
shawe spent some little time in the service of his pa- 
tron ; but in 1649, desirous, we may safely conclude, 
of a retreat from care, and a rest from the troubles 
which had come upon his life, he accepted a small 
benefice in the Basilica Church of Our Lady, at Loretto, 
near Ancona, in Italy. The few weeks' service which 
his short life enabled him to render at these altars was 
but an initiation to that diviner service, unknown to 
mortal hands and lips, to which he was called when yet 
but thirty- seven years of age. 



XXXVI. 

SIR ROGER L'ESTRANGE. 

16 r 6-1 704. 

THROUGHOUT the seventeenth century the 
pamphleteers were a numerous class of Eng- 
lish writers. Here in New England they held the field 
for a hundred years later. It was a time when impor- 
tant questions in rehgion and politics were up for dis- 
cussion. Newspapers had not then been evolved. 
Some cheap and ready way of reaching the reading 
public must be devised. Pamphlets answered this 
purpose admirably. The thousands of these that 
have survived to the present show by paper and print 
that they were intended to serve an immediate pur- 
pose. They were scarcely regarded, by their writers 
or readers, as a part of the hterature of the time or of 
the country. Subsequent history has raised many of 
these handy publications, however, to rank with the 
labored essays of their day. 

Among the pamphleteers of the period of the Res- 
toration, Sir Roger L'Estrange takes high rank. He 
represents well this class of writers as a whole. He 
was familiar with the matters under discussion, since 
whatever was pubHshed came under his observation 
as censor of the press. Born in 16 16, he had lived 
through the troubled reign of Charles I. and the event- 
ful years of the Commonwealth. His connection with 



SI/^ ROGER L' ESTRANGE. 26/ 

public men and with public affairs had been intimate. 
His skill in argument and fondness for controversy 
made him a powerful advocate or a formidable oppo- 
nent. His temper is rarely ruffled, but he sometimes 
writes in a vein of bitter reflection, as in this personal 
paragraph from "The Free-born Subject," pubhshed 
in 1680 : — 

" I defy any man to produce another gentleman in the 
king's dominions, under any circumstances, that hath 
suffered so many illegal, arbitrary, and mean injustices 
from any of the abusers of the king's bounty as I have 
done; insomuch that after a sentence of death for his 
Majesty, betwixt three and four years in Newgate, and 
a matter of seven and thirty years' faithful service to the 
Crown, the bread hath been taken out of my mouth and 
in a large proportion shared amongst some of those very 
people that pursued the late king to the block. Nor do 
I look for any more advantage for the future." 

From the very nature of the questions which they 
dealt with, the pamphlets of L' Estrange could not fail 
to touch at many points upon our colonial history. 
Allowance needs to be made for the natural warmth 
with which the discussion was carried on by heated 
partisans on either side. We are not likely, at any 
point, to lose sight of the fact that the writer was a 
stanch royalist. In a pamphlet published before 1680, 
and entitled "Toleration Discussed by a Conformist 
and a Nonconformist," under the former character the 
author gives us a pen-and-ink sketch of Puritan char- 
acter and conduct. 

" You object the rejitoval of others into Holland as 
fori7terly. Indeed, it is not for the credit of your cause 
to mind us of those that formerly left us. Take the pains 
to read Bayly's Discussion, and there you shall see what 



268 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

work they made in Holland ; even such that Peters him- 
self was scandalized at it, quitted his congregation, and 
went to New England. Bridge, Sympson, and Ward re- 
nounced their English ordination, and took ordination 
again from the people. The people after this deposed 
Mr. Ward, and the schism betwixt Sympson's church and 
Bridge's was so fierce that their ministers were fain to 
quit their stations, and the Dutch magistrate forced to 
interpose the civil authority to quiet them. In New Eng- 
land their humor and behavior was not much better 
(according to the report of the same author). Of forty 
thousand souls, not a third part would be of any church, 
and such heresies started as a man would tremble to re- 
cite. If only such as these forsake us, the land has a 
good riddance." 

There was beneath this appearance of complacency 
a feeling of chagrin at the success with which the Non- 
conformists were carrying out their pohcy of removal 
from the country and separation from the State. This 
will account for the suspicion under which New Eng- 
land was held during all the colonial period ; and it is 
not to be denied that the Home Government was given 
very plain hints as to what was the purpose of the early 
emigrants. There was added to this tract on Tolera- 
tion a second part, in which the discussion was carried 
on between a Presbyterian and an Independent. It is 
not so easy in this case to discover which party has 
the sympathy of the author. Perhaps it would be bet- 
ter to leave so delicate a feehng as sympathy entirely 
out of the question, and try to find out which party 
shared most generously the author's hatred. Else- 
where we shall find hat it was the Presbyterian who 
excited the bitterest .-esentment. 

In the course of the argument the Independent 
shows that, under Queen Elizabeth, the Puritans were 



SIR ROGER L'ESl'RANGE. 269 

all Presbyterians. As to the Familists and Brownists, 
he remarks that " they gave the executioner more 
trouble than the government, and were suppressed as 
soon as detected." When he is reminded that he 
makes no account of "the turbulent Independents 
that went away to New England, Holland, and other 
parts beyond the seas, with all the clamor and rancor 
imaginable against the government," his defence is 
upon the only ground upon which the colonists ever 
attempted to clear themselves of all odium attaching 
to the death of the king. " Not to justify them in 
their clamor," he says, "I must yet recommend their 
departure as a fair testimony that they withdrew upon 
conscience. For by this secession they put themselves 
out of condition to carry on a faction ; whereas the 
Presbyterians, that had a further design in prospect, 
stood their ground, watched their advantages, and 
gained their end." 

Farther along in the discussion the Presbyterian 
presses his adversary with these queries : " The 
Independents made sweet work in Holland, did they 
not ? And where was your spirit of toleration and for- 
bearance, I beseech you, in New England ? " The 
reply to this is in a milder manner than the author had 
treated of these points before. " You cannot say," 
the Independent answers, " that we gave any trouble 
in Holland to the state, or that we fell foul there upon 
different judgments. In New England, 'tis true, we 
excluded the Gortonists, Familists, Seekers, Antino- 
mians, Anabaptists, and subjected them to the censure 
of the civil power as people of dangerous principles in 
respect both of good life and government. Which 
proceeding of ours, methinks, might serve to disabuse 
those that call Independency the gefius generalissimum 



270 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

of all errors, heresies, blasphemies, and schisms, and 
take the church way of New England for that sort of 
Independency. They did also exclude papacy and 
prelacy, — perchance more out of regard to a tempo- 
rary convenience than upon any rooted principle of 
implacable severity. And I persuade myself the Epis- 
copal party will witness thus much on our behalf that 
as to the freedom of our meetings and way of worship 
in the late revolutions, they had much better quarter 
from the Independents than ever they had from the 
Presbyterians. There was no persecuting of men for 
covenants and directories ; so that thus far the Inde- 
pendents have made their professions of Hberty good 
by their practice." 

It was only by comparison with the Presbyterians 
that the Independents were even tolerable in the 
view of L'Estrange. At the time when he wrote his 
*' Tyranny and Popery," in 1678, the Presbyterians 
had been so long the butt of ridicule that the stock 
jests with which they were lampooned must have 
seemed rather stale. It had been just fifteen years 
since Butler's " Hudibras " was first pubhshed, and 
the popularity of that book must have made its 
waggery and its scurrility familiar to everybody in 
England. Under the example of the Merry Monarch, 
in his correspondence and his conversation, the lan- 
guage was losing nothing of that indelicacy of expres- 
sion which marked the period of the Restoration. The 
pamphleteer in plain prose offends not less than the 
poet in his too plain verse. A few points will show 
how steadily was kept up the raillery against Puritanic 
precision. 

" As to excess in eating, it is made a matter of salva- 
tion or damnation whether a man eats beef or vension. 



SIR ROGER L' ESTRANGE. 2/1 

In regard to vain words, a nurs3 shall not dare to still 
her child but with a psalm ; and you must not presume 
so much as to ask what o'clock it is, without a text to 
prove that the question tends to edification. In regulat- 
ing public recreations, it is reported that a man may be 
given to the devil for lolling upon his elbow. So far were 
thoughts censurable that it was held that he who sues to 
recover a debt shall be suspected of avarice. Cholmlye 
desires to be resolved whether the strict prohibition of 
not kindling fire on the Sabbath be of the substance of 
the moral precept." 

It is a striking instance of the extent to which the 
intelligence of that time could be led away from the 
current of modern thought that L'Estrange in "The 
Reformed Catholic," published in 1679, should quote 
from Edwards, by way of argument against the sec- 
taries, the efforts of these people in behalf of persons 
accused of witchcraft. " He speaks of a sectary plead- 
ing for a toleration of witches, with several abominable 
instances : and he charges the nursery and increase of 
them upon the Presbyterians ; and that it was their 
indulgence, not Episcopal connivance, that wrought 
our mischief in that kind." This was printed only 
about a dozen years before the outbreak of that delu- 
sion in New England, which, every way deplorable in 
itself, yet extinguished forever the old superstition. 

One of UEstrange's latest pamphlets was printed in 
1681 in answer to "A Petition for Peace," etc., by 
Richard Baxter. The writer of the " Petition " had 
signed it only with his initials ; but there was no doubt 
as to its authorship. It was a plea for some arrange- 
ment by which the quarrel between the Episcopal and 
the non-Episcopal factions might be terminated. A 
few paragraphs from the " Answer " will show how 
useless was all argument upon the matters in dispute 



2/2 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

at that time. Writing with reference to some proposed 
changes in the liturgy, the respondent says : "I hope 
they will not say these changes were matter of con- 
science, unless because the king commanded the 
contrary. What was the true ground of this their 
unmannerly dealing with his Majesty? Truly no other 
than the pure nature of the animal : a Presbyterian 
does not love a king." 

The proposals put forward by Baxter in behalf of the 
Nonconforming party are met by an insinuation of a 
lack of sincerity. "Their appeal is tumultuary, and 
their present design, should it succeed, as certainly 
destructive to his Majesty now living as the last was to 
his Most Conscientiously Murdered Father." In the 
same strain are readers cautioned against the designs 
of those who entreat for peace. "Look ye be not 
cheated with their ambition, and never trouble your- 
selves for their consciences. They '11 shift in all weathers ; 
for in case of necessity — 

" ' Pig may be eaten ; yea, exceedingly well eaten.' " 

To the argument that forbearance would quiet the 
Dissenters, L'Estrange makes reply that " they are no 
Presbyterians, then, for ever since they have had a 
being, kvtdness has made them worse." He is even 
wrought up to the point of exclaiming, "What an 
amphibian is a designing Presbyterian ! A levelling 
prelate ! We have here a compliment to New England 
from the Kirk of Scotland." It is not easy to discover 
in what particular or to what degree the Dissent of 
New England was lacking a full completeness in those 
days, but we may feel sure that the Kirk of Scotland 
was prepared to make good any deficiency. 



I 



XXXVII. 

RICHARD LOVELACE. 

1618-1658. 

A FEW years ago Mr. Henry Morley compiled 
what he called " a little pleasure book of Eng- 
lish verse," made up of selections from the writings of 
'* true poets who lived in the time of Charles I. and 
the Commonwealth." He divided the writers, as they 
were themselves divided in sentiment, into the party 
" with the king " and the party " with the Commons." 
The former greatly outnumbered their rivals ; for while 
the editor finds thirty-five loyal singers whom he deems 
worthy of a place in his book, there are but three of 
those who were friendly to the Parliament. The bal- 
ance stands, however, against this weight of numbers 
upon the admission of Milton to that trio. These 
lists of poets who enjoyed a popularity of a longer or 
shorter life are of interest to us in this country and at 
this date from the circumstance that they show us on 
which side, in the quarrel between the king and the 
Commons, were arrayed the elegantly accomplished and 
refined gentry of the land. Our Puritan ancestors 
were not practised sonneteers, nor had their fingers 
the magic touch to waken the numbers of the lute- 
strings. 

But Mr. Morley's collection embraces only the more 
respectable names of the period. There were scores 
18 



2/4 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

of Others on either side who enjoyed a brief local 
celebrity, but whose work we see and hear Httle of 
to-day. What was the bitterness of feeling which 
marked the field of letters as strongly as it did any 
field of action, we shall see from this passage from a 
satire by Lovelace : — 

" Who would delight in his chaste eyes to see 
Dormice to strike at lights of poesy ? 
Faction and envy now are downright rage. 
Once a fine-knotted whip there was, the stage, 
The beadle and the executioner, 
To whip small errors, and the great ones tear ; 
Now, as ere Nimrod, the first king, he writes 
That 's strongest, th' ablest deepest bites. 
The Muses weeping fly their hill to see 
Their noblest sons of peace in mutiny ; 
Could there nought else this civil war complete 
But poets raging with poetic heat. 
Tearing themselves and the endless wreath, as though 
Immortal they, their wreath should be so too ? " 

This Richard Lovelace, from whose satire we have 
quoted, was one of the more amiable of those poets 
who were steadfast in their loyalty to the king. He 
voices in his verse the sentiments of the aristocratic 
county families of his time, and in the fortunes, or 
better, the misfortunes, of his life he illustrates the 
history of the cause which he valiantly supported. He 
was born, to an old and wealthy family of Kent, in 
1618. Fortune smiled sweetly on his youth, as she 
later frowned severely on the purposes of his manhood. 
He was of two years' standing at Oxford in 1636, 
when the king held court for a season in that town. 
It was the occasion when ^' The Royal Slave " of 
Cartwright was acted before the king and queen by 
members of the university. Lovelace unluckily, as it 



RICHARD LOVELACE. 275 

seems, gained the favor of some lady attached to the 
court. He was at once graduated master of arts, 
although his course of study was not half completed. 
The youth of eighteen was given military rank and 
employment about the court. 

We cannot look back from this remoteness of time 
and of circumstance upon that event in the poet's life 
without hazarding the guess to our own minds, or 
openly, that the action of the king and of the ladies 
who attended the queen was not wholly disinterested. 
It was a measure taken to attach to their cause a 
family of influence which was likely otherwise to have 
developed sympathies with the Commons. This in- 
ference is drawn from the position in which Lovelace 
was subsequently placed, and from the tone of his 
writings. He had written, before he became a cour- 
tier, a comedy entitled "The Scholar," and soon 
after he left Oxford he composed a tragedy, **The 
Soldier." This piece was never acted, however, for 
the theatres were closed after 1636. A large number 
of his poems were written while he was in prison, 
and it is of interest to see how he came there. 

Early in 1642 the people of Kent, who were loyal 
to the king, presented to Parliament a petition asking 
that the king be restored to his rights. Young Love- 
lace was selected as the person by whose hand this 
was to be presented. Everything goes to show that 
this action was taken in good faith. If so, we must 
suppose that the youthful Kentish courtier was then 
regarded as not offensive to the Parhament. How- 
ever that might be, he was brought to trial for the 
act, and on the 30th of April was committed to the 
Gatehouse at Westminster. It was from this place 
that were sent those lines "To Althea," of which 



276 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

the last stanza has been made familiar by frequent 
quotations. 

" Stone walls do not a prison make, 

Nor iron bars a cage ; - 
Minds innocent and quiet take 

That for an heritage. 
If I have freedom in my love, 

And in my soul am free, 
Angels alone that soar above 

Enjoy such liberty." 

We shall not be surprised to find the poet betray- 
ing in these prison meditations of his some political 
feeling. In a poem addressed to Lucasta, from 
prison, he says, — 

" I would love a Parliament 
As a main prop from heaven sent ; 
But ah ! who 's he that would be wedded 
To th' fairest body that 's beheaded } " 

The allusion in the last clause is clearly to the cir- 
cumstance that the Parliament no longer recognized 
the authority or the existence of the king. In this 
production the poet names, as objects of his love, 
peace, war, religion, parliament, Hberty, property, 
reformation, public faith ; but as he is prevented from 
devoting himself to any of these objects of natural 
affection, he asks, — 

" What then remains but th' only spring 
Of all our loves and joys, — the king ? " 

Whether those lines to Lucasta were written from 
the Gatehouse at Westminster, or from some other 
prison of later occupancy, does not plainly appear ; but 
from the fact that in alluding to his " birthright, prop- 
erty," he declares that he has nothing that he can 
call his own, we may conclude that they were written 



\ 



RICHARD LOVELACE. 2/7 

during the term of a later imprisonment. His editors 
have found that all his patrimony was spent in be- 
half of the king before 1646. From this time on, un- 
til his death, which is said to have occurred in 1658, 
Lovelace lived in obscurity, except as his talents gave 
him some reputation among literary men ; and he is 
reported to have died at a wretchedly mean lodg- 
ing-house, in the poorest quarter of London. 

There is a great deal in the personal history of 
Lovelace to awaken the sympathetic interest of the 
reader. His early adherence to the cause of the 
king at a time when that cause was rapidly losing 
what little popularity it had, and his chivalric devotion 
to that course until the bitter end was reached both 
for his sovereign and for himself, were all the way 
marked by conduct and by language becoming an 
honorable man. In his actions he proved the sin- 
cerity of the well-known lines addressed to Lucasta 
on his going to the wars, — 

" I could not love thee, dear, so much, 
Loved I not honor more." 

The issues involved in the choice which the young 
poet was called to make, and the intrepid spirit with 
which those issues were met one after another until 
the wasted pauper left his lodgings in Shoe Lane, and 
was followed by noble and by literary friends to his 
rent-free lodgings in the grave, serve as a splendid 
illustration of what certain other personal histories 
would have been had the contest between the king 
and the Parliament come to a different ending. 

No reader of Lovelace need expect to find evidence 
of any unusual poetic gifts. His inspiration was 
simply the spirit of the age to which he belonged ; the 
very age into which he was so happily born, and 



278 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

through which he so unhappily lived. He reflects 
the feeling with which the well-favored and well- 
educated youth of England stood by the cause they 
had espoused. Even when they despaired of the 
fortune of that cause, they sang with an unfaltering 
voice, to prove that through all the struggle personal 
honor had bravely been maintained. It is this sin- 
cerity, this loyalty to the sentiment of his party, that 
gives these poems their chief worth to us. We have 
already seen that the poets mostly went with the king. 
Of that doomed majority Lovelace is one of the best 
representatives. He is, first and last, with his fortune 
and his life, a stanch supporter of his king and of 
royal privileges ; but he is, none the less than Milton 
and Mar\'ell, all this time a thorough-going English- 
man. He never forgets, soldier that he is, as Cleve- 
land and Cartwright forgot, of the clergy though they 
were, that his foes are honestly contending for the 
same ultimate idea that animates himself, — the wel- 
fare of their common country. He is nowhere bitter, 
nowhere abusive ; on no occasion is he anything less 
than a gentleman. 

Lovelace is not lacking in feeling or in fancy. 
His verse is often impassioned. But we miss from 
his vividness of picturing some grace of expression 
with which Herrick, we fancy, would have toned 
down the too strong light. Take, as an example of 
the distinctness and vigor of his conceptions, these 
hnes addressed to Lucasta : — 

" Ah, my fair murderess ! dost thou cruelly heal, 
With various pains, to make me well .? 

Then let me be 

Thy cut anatomy, 
And in each mangled part my heart you '11 see." 



RICHARD LOVELACE. 2'jg 

To this may be added a more familiar passage from 
his lines to Gratiana dancing and singing : — 

"Each step trod out a lover's thought, 
And the ambitious hopes he brought 

Chained to her brave feet with such arts, 
Such sweet command and gentle awe, 
As when she ceased we sighing saw 

The floor lay paved with broken hearts/* 

A more playful exercise of the poet's fancy is 
that by which he speaks of " Ellinda's Glove " as a 
farm divided into five separate holdings. 

" Thou snowy farm with thy five tenements, 
Tell thy white mistress here was one 
That called to pay his daily rents ; 

But she a-gathering hearts has gone. 
And thou left void to rude possession." 

The most pleasing production of this poet, and 
the one that will best commend his Muse to modern 
taste, is that charming ode entitled " The Grasshop- 
per," and addressed to his friend Charles Cotton. I 
am aware with what ungracious criticism this ode 
has been partially reprinted in a recent collection of 
Enghsh verse. All that need be said on this point 
is that the critic hopelessly and pitiably blundered. 
The handling of the subject on the poet's part is 
worthy the skill, the taste, and the genius of Horace. 
If a more authoritative sanction than this be wanting 
for the apparent lack of continuity and of adaptation 
which is complained of, let the reader turn to Pindar 
and follow that poet's wayward fancy through any 
one of his odes. 

The opening stanza of this poem will give the 
measure and also the tone of the whole, — 



28o WELLS OF ENGLLSH. 

*• O thou that swing'st upon the waving ear 
Of some well-filled oaten beard, 
Drunk every night with a delicious tear 

Dropp'd thee from heaven, where thou wast reared ! " 

After this manner the poet goes on to describe 
the careless and merry life of the grasshopper so long 
as summer continues ; but he reflects upon the bitter 
experience which winter brings. This reflection leads 
him to say to his friend that the joys of the grass- 
hopper, which are only so large and lasting as its 
perch of grass, bid them *' lay in 'gainst winter 
rains." He proposes that they make their companion- 
ship a refuge from the storms of fortune. They will 
adopt a philosophy very similar to that which Horace 
recommended to his friends. 

" Thus richer than untempted kings are we, 

That, asking nothing, nothing need ; 
Though lord of all that seas embrace, yet he 

That wants himself is poor indeed." 

This sentiment was admirably suited to the stormy 
times in which Lovelace lived. He bore himself 
through all that trying period with such a spirit that 
at no time did he " want himself," and as a conse- 
quence he lacked not the friendship of Andrew Mar- 
veil, who was with the 'Commons. 



XXXVIII. 

WILLIAM CHAMBERLAYNE. 

1619-1689. 

IT is safe to say that Chamberlayne is not read to- 
day. It requires little boldness to venture the 
assertion that he has riot been read for the last two 
hundred years. The little popularity he ever had 
died out with the reign of the Merry Monarch. 
A revival of the taste which he cultivated and to 
which his writings appeal is no more desirable than 
would be a revival of the manners of that age ; the 
same inherent worthlessness marks both. What kept 
that vitiated taste and those corrupt manners so long 
above pubhc contempt was the traditionary idea of 
their gentiHty. The poet followed his instincts in his 
verse, as he did when he went into the army of the 
king against the forces of the ParHament. The blun- 
der was a fatal one in each instance. 

But Chamberlayne is worth some attention at this 
time, because his work fills a gap in our literature 
that would without it have been left wide open. He 
was the literary contemporary of Milton and Marvell, 
for the threescore years and ten of his life began to 
be counted from 1619 ; but he was the intellectual 
contemporary and fellow of Boccaccio. If he did 
not borrow from the Italian story-teller, he at least 



282 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

imitated him closely. It is his weakness, which he 
shares with most imitators, that he cannot discrimi- 
nate between the excellences and the failings of his 
master. 

This has reference to the subject matter of Cham- 
berlayne's one heroic poem, " Pharonnida." So far 
as local color is concerned, the incidents might as 
well have been referred to cloudland as to Sicily and 
the Levant. In probability they come little nearer 
to real life. The reader is as little affected by their 
touch upon his sympathies as by the phantasm shown 
in Spenser's " Faerie Queene.'' It was natural that 
the poet should go out of England for his material 
during the civil war. Milton did the same ; but there 
was Httle chance of the two poets meeting in their 
absence. No two works would better illustrate the 
spirit which animated the Roundhead and the Cav- 
alier than "Paradise Lost" and " Pharonnida." 
Milton pursues the course of his high argument, and 
justifies the ways of God to man ; Chamberlayne 
revives with feeble breath the old-time spirit of 
chivalry. 

In the treatment of his subject the poet is no less 
unhappy. His facility of rhyming is a fatal gift. He 
allows any word to close the line, no matter how 
unimportant it may be, or how closely it may be con- 
nected with what follows. Prepositions and auxil- 
iaries are just as suitable to this place as any other 
words. The effect of this is an unusual overflow, as 
Mr. Gosse calls it. The diction holds over, and 
the couplets are rarely complete, as they are in Pope 
and the poets of the classical school. As a specimen 
of Chamberlayne*s work when he was at his best, 
these lines are taken from the first book : — 



WILLIAM CHAMBERLAYNE. 283 

" I' the worst extreme of time, about the birth 
O' the sluggish morning, when the crusted earth 
Was tinselled o'er with frost, and each spring clad 
With winter's wool, I, whom cross Fortune had 
Destined to early labors, being abroad, 
Met two benighted men, far from the road. 
Wandering alone ; no skilful guide their way 
Directing in that infancy of day, 
But the faint beams of glimmering candles that 
Shone from our lowly cottage window, at 
Which marks they steered their course." 

This feature of the poem is made of all the more 
interest because Mr. Gosse and those who like to 
divide our literature into distinct periods have dated 
the beginning of classicism from Waller's day, which 
was some twenty years earlier than that of Chamber- 
layne ; and yet "Pharonnida" is strongly marked by 
romanticism on every point. It had, moreover, 
sufficient popularity to be made over into a prose 
romance, which was published under the title of 
" Eromena," or the " Noble Stranger," in 1683. This 
is only one instance of hundreds to show that the 
shading off of one popular taste into another is grad- 
ual and by easy stages. It is as difficult in literary 
history as it is in political history to get at the real 
beginnings of revolutions. One will hesitate to say 
just where a period begins or where it ends ; indeed, 
it is not easy to decide what constitutes a period. 
The continuity is nowhere broken. 

Chamberlayne served in the army of the king, 
and was in the battle of Newbury, on the 27th of 
October, 1644. He makes direct reference to this 
service in the closing lines of the second book. The 
sentiment is manly, and shows a spirit warmed with 
the fire of ancient chivalry. 



284 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

"But ere calmed thoughts, to prosecute our story, 
Salute thy ears with the deserved glory 
Our martial lover purchased here, I must 
Let my pen rest awhile, and see the rust 
Scoured from my own sword ; for a fatal day 
Draws on those gloomy hours, whose short steps may 
In Britain's blushing chronicle write more 
Of sanguine guilt than a whole age before, 
To tell our too neglected troops that we 
In a just cause are slow. We ready see 
Our rallied foes, nor will 't our slothful crime 
Expunge to say, Guilt wakened them betime. 
From every quarter the affrighted scout 
Brings swift alarums in ; hovering about 
The clouded tops of the adjacent hills, 
Like ominous vapors, lie their troops ; noise fills 
Our yet unrivalled army ; and we now, 
Grown legible in the contracted brow, 
Discern whose heart looks pale with fear. If in 
This rising storm of blood, which doth begin 
To drop already, I 'm not washed into 
The grave, my next safe quarter shall renew 
Acquaintance with Pharonnida. TiU then 
I leave the Muses, to converse with men." 

The poet was a physician as well as soldier, and 
the influence of his professional studies is seen on 
almost every page. To show how badly he could 
write when he sacrificed physic to the Muses, it will \ 
be quite enough to give his account of a violent * 
attack sustained by a garrison : — 

" The castle, in 
Feverish alarums sweating, did begin 
To ease her fiery stomach by the breath 
O' the full-mouthed cannon ; ministers of death 
In this hot labor busily distil extracted spirits." 

And yet Chamberlayne has been found worth read- 
ing by those who were competent to judge what was 



WILLIAM CHAMBERLAYNE. 285 

helpful. Southey acknowledged his indebtedness to 
the Cavalier poet for many hours of delight, and he 
speaks of him in the notes to the " Vision of the 
Maid of Orleans " as " a poet who has told an inter- 
esting story in uncouth rhymes, and mingled sublimity 
of thought and beauty of expression with the quaint- 
est conceits and most awkward inversions." 

It has been remarked that Chamberlayne is no 
longer read. This circumstance warrants a more 
liberal quoting from his poem than would be justified 
in the case of a work more generally known. Where 
he speaks of Pharonnida in mourning he is natural 
and graceful. 

" The slow-footed day, 

Hardly from night distinguished, steals away 

Few beams from her tear-clouded eyes, and those 

A melancholy pensiveness bestows 

On saddest subjects." 

There is a passage in the fourth book which re- 
lates to the political and social condition of England 
in the poet's own time. It presents the different 
view which the landed gentry and the tenantry take 
of the situation. The sympathies of the writer are 
clearly with the poor tenants ; he was himself a poor 
man. The passage is too long to give entire, but 
part of the last sentence will serve as a guide to any 
who care for the literature of the labor question of 
the seventeenth century. 

" Farms for whose loss poor widows wept, and fields 
Which, being confined to strict enclosure, yields 
To his crammed chests the starving poor man's food ; 
For private ends robbing their public good, 
With guilt enclosed those ways which now had brought 
Him by some cottages, whose owners bought 
Poor livelihoods at a laborious rate 
From his racked lands j for which pursuing hate 



286 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

Now follows him in curses ; for in that 

They yet take vengeance ; till arriving at 

The thicker peopled villages, where, more bold 

By number made, the fire of hate takes hold 

On clamorous women, whose vexed husbands thirst 

I' the fever of revenge. To these when first 

They kindled had the flame, swiftly succeeds 

More active men, such as resolved their deeds, 

Spite of restrictive law, should set them free 

From the oppressor of their liberty." 

Chamberlayne published but one other poem be- 
sides his " Pharonnida," and that was what he called 
a tragi-comedy, under the title of " Love's Victory." 
In his dedication of the piece to Sir William Port- 
man, the author intimates that it was not designed 
for the public stage; and as this was in 1658, such 
a view was natural However, twenty years later, 
when the stage was again licensed, the play was 
acted, with some few changes. Few lyrical passages 
occur, and as good a specimen of the writer's power 
in this line as can be given is the sacrificial song be- 
ginning with the stanza, — 

" See, each wind leaves civil wars, 

The gods approve your sacrifice ; 
And to behold it, all the stars 

Look through the curtains of the skies. 
Peace reigns through every element, 
Whilst this fair pair to heaven are sent." 



XXXIX. 

ANDREW MARVELL. 

1620- 1678. 

MARVELL is known to the readers of English 
hterature chiefly as a poet, and his reputa- 
tion in this character remains fixed at about the same 
degree of respectabihty ever since it became the 
fashion to make up a hst of standard British authors 
and to ignore all writers who were not admitted with- 
in the company of the elect. Happily for our ac- 
quaintance with this man, he was then thought worthy 
of a place among the poets. But it was not as a 
poet that he was best known and most valued in his 
own day and generation. Marvell was essentially a 
man of affairs ; and the affairs with which he was 
concerned were those of the State and of the gen- 
eral pubhc, — not the buying and seUing that are 
attended with private gain. Even the inspiration of 
his poetry we trace to his poHtical surroundings, and 
we read his several pieces with an interest propor- 
tioned to the degree to which we identify ourselves 
with the occasion of their composition. 

In his own time — and that was the time of the 
Commonwealth and of the Restoration — Marvell was 
more popularly known as a writer of prose than as 
a writer of verse. His political pamphlets were 



288 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

addressed to the public at large, with the purpose of 
exciting and directing popular sentiment ; and there is 
good reason to believe that they were effective to 
this end. As they were the product of his more seri- 
ous employment, they would call first for examination 
on the part of one who would care to know the man 
and author as he himself would have been glad to be 
known. His service of nearly twenty years in Par- 
liament after the restoration of the monarchy, called 
for a display of sturdy manliness in those worse than 
bad times. That a man of wit and of literary reputa- 
tion could not be seduced from loyalty to the prin- 
ciples he had maintained with Milton under the 
Commonwealth, argues a fidelity unique at the time, 
and too rare at the best. 

But the prose of Marvell, in which the fire of his 
genius burns with the clearest flame, is no longer 
read. It relates largely to the questions of the day 
and to the interests of his constituents. The best 
portions that remain are controversial, and are to be 
judged by comparison with what we have from 
other hands. There are blots upon them that call 
for a stronger plea than that of customary usage to 
excuse their presence. All that can be said in the 
case is that the reader who is acquainted with the 
literature of the time of Charles II. will know just 
what care is needed in picking his way through those 
slums. 

. Marvell always stood by his friends whenever they 
were attacked, and in those days open warfare was 
the normal state of the Church and of society. 
Among those friends of his who were assailed was 
the soft-spoken, gentle-mannered John Howe, who 
had been chaplain to Cromwell in the last years of 



ANDREW MARVELL, 289 

the Protectorate. The attack was made by a clergy- 
man, Thomas Danson, and Marvell came to Howe's 
defence with a tract, after the fashion of the time. 
The performance is noticeably calm and considerate, 
but the author's talent for burlesque crops out in 
passages like this : — 

"The camel is a beast admirably shaped for burthen, 
but so lumpish withal that nothing can be more inept 
for feats of activity. Yet men have therefore invented 
how to make it dance, that, by how much unnatural, the 
spectacle might appear more absurd and ridiculous. Its 
keeper leads it upon a pavement so thoroughly warmed 
that the creature, not able to escape or abide it, shifts 
first one foot, and then another, to relieve itself, and 
would, if possible, tread the air on all four, the ground 
being too hot for it to stand upon. He in the mean time 
traverses and trips about it at a cooled distance, striking 
some volunteer notes on his Egyptian kit, like a French 
dancing-master. But knowing that his scholar is both 
in too much pain and too dull to learn his measures, he 
therefore upon frequent observation accords a tune to 
his figure and footing, which comes to the same account. 
So that, after daily repeating the lesson in private, they 
seem both at last to be agreed upon a new Arabic sara- 
band. Having thus far succeeded, he tries next whether 
what he taught by torture be not confirmed by custom, 
and if a cool hearth may not have the like effect. The 
camel no sooner hears his fiddle, but, as if its memory 
were in its feet, the animal bestirs forthwith its long legs, 
and, with many an antic motion, and ill-favored coupe, 
gratifies the master's patience and expectations. When 
he finds by constant experiment that it never fails him, 
he thenceforward makes it public, and, having com- 
pounded with the master of the revels, shows it, with 
great satisfaction to the vulgar, every Bartholomew Fair 
in Grand Cairo." 

19 



290 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

It is easy to see how such powers of invention 
would serve their possessor in a controversy over 
some serious matter of Church or State. The sarcasm 
of Marvell was unrivalled until the appearance of 
Dean Swift. It is in "The Rehearsal Transposed" 
that this power is best displayed. This little book 
was called out by the publication, in 1672, of Bishop 
Bramhall's "Vindication," etc. The preface to the 
"'Vindication" was written by Bishop Parker, a young 
man of little practice in writing ; and it was this pre- 
face that was the butt of Marvell's ridicule. 

The unsophisticated writer of the preface apolo- 
gized for his part in the appearance of the book, 
and was laughed at for his pains in a manner absurdly 
innocent and condescending : — 

" ' He could not but yield so far as to improve every 
fragment of time that he could get into his own disposal, 
to gratify the importunity of the bookseller.' Was ever 
civility graduated up and enhanced to such a value ! 
His mistress herself could not have endeared a favor so 
nicely, nor granted it with more sweetness. Was the 
bookseller more importunate, or the author more cour- 
teous ? The author was the pink of courtesy, the book- 
seller the burr of importunity." 

As a specimen of the utterly absurd in reasoning, 
we have this set forth with comical seriousness : — 

" How perfect soever a man may have been in any 
science, yet without continual practice he will find a 
sensible decay of his faculty. Hence also, and upon the 
same natural ground, it is the wisdom of cats to whet 
their claws against the chairs and hangings, in medita- 
tion of the next rat they are to encounter." 



ANDREW MARVELL. 29 1 

It was to this "Rehearsal," no doubt, that the 
anonymous writer of the " Ode to Lady Coventry " 
referred in these lines : — 

"'Midst cringing courtiers honest Marvell writ; 
Even mitred dulness felt his poignant wit." 

There is much in common between Marvell and 
Butler, the author of " Hudibras." Their fun is so 
nearly the same thing that it is not easy at times to 
decide to which it is to be credited. Their sympa- 
thies, however, were given to opposite parties. Mar- 
vell, on the whole, favored the Nonconforming clergy, 
more than two thousand of whom were evicted after 
the Restoration ; he evidently thought them the 
more honest portion of the order. Butler had all 
his fun at the expense of the Dissenters, the Puritans 
and the Presbyterians. In the pages of the " Rehear- 
sal," Marvell takes occasion to express his respect for 
his fellow-poet. 

" But lest I might be mistaken as to the persons I men- 
tion, I will assure the reader that I intend not Hudibras ; 
for he is a man of the other robe, and his excellent wit 
hath taken a flight far above these whifflers ; that who- 
ever dislikes the choice of this subject cannot but com- 
mend his performance, and calculate, if on a theme so 
barren he were so copious, what admirable sport he 
would have made with an ecclesiastical politician." 

There was one subject, however, upon which Mar- 
vell and Butler could write so perfectly in the same 
vein that one cannot help feeling a curiosity to learn 
which of the two wrote the earlier. In lampooning 
the Dutch they worked up precisely the same ma- 
terial. We may conclude that this was the proverbial 



292 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

jest and banter with which the Hollanders, who were 
then numerous in England, were greeted at every 
meeting. Butler laughs at Holland as the country 
that draws six fathoms of water, and where fishes 
come to the table as guests, and not as meat. Mar- 
veil follows up the ridicule in the same strain. 

"Holland, that scarce deserves the name of land, 
As but the off-scouring of the British sand, 
And so much earth as was contributed 
By English pilots when thay heaved the lead, 
Or what by the ocean's slow alluvion fell 
Of shipwrecked cockle and the muscle-shell, — 
This indigested vomit of the sea 
Fell to the Dutch by just propriety. 

•' Glad then as miners who have found the ore. 
They, with mad labor, fished the land to shore. 
And dived as desperately for each piece ■* 
Of earth as if 't had been of ambergreese. 
Collecting anxiously small loads of clay 
Less than what building swallows bear away. 

" How did they rivet, with gigantic piles, 
Thorough the centre their new-catched miles, 
And to the stake a struggling country bound, 
Where barking waves still bait the forced ground. 
Building their watery Babel far more high. 
To reach the sea, than those to scale the sky ! " 

Marvell is best known as the friend of Milton. 
The two poets had been associated in the civil service 
of their country under the Commonwealth. Their 
friendship was more than identity of pursuits and 
tastes. When "Paradise Lost" appeared, Marvell 
W£s early with his offering of praise. A passage from 
this will serve as an example of his more serious 
work : — 



4 



ANDREW MARVELL. 293 

" That majesty which through thy work doth reign 
Draws the devout, deterring the profane ; 
And things divine thou treat'st of in such state 
As them preserves and thee inviolate. 
At once delight and horror on us seize, 
Thou sing'st with so much gravity and ease. 
And above human flight dost soar aloft, 
With plume so strong, so equal, and so soft. 
The bird named from that paradise you sing. 
So never flags, but always keeps on wing. 
Where could'st thou words of such a compass find ? 
Whence furnish such a vast expanse of mind? 
Just Heaven thee, like Tiresias, to requite. 
Rewards with prophecy thy loss of sight/' 



XL. 

JOHN EVELYN. 

1620- 1706. 

THERE will be no occasion for any one to write a 
life of Evelyn so long as his Diary is in exist- 
ence ; and this book happens to be one that bids 
fair to hold its interest and popularity for all the time 
that our literature may last. Although not to be 
reckoned as any part of his literary work, the Diary 
is nevertheless so full and complete a record of his 
public career that it not only furnishes us all the facts 
of that career, but it gives us here and there glimpses 
of the life going on around the writer, particularly in 
the circle to which he belonged. Evelyn was born 
in 1620. He was conversant with public affairs under 
Charles I., Cromwell, and Charles II. His agency 
in these affairs both at home and abroad put him in 
a position to know the facts, and in his Journal we 
feel that he states them truly. That he was a stanch 
monarchist even under Cromwell does not lessen the 
value of his opinions, it proves their honesty. As 
political history, few writings of that time carry more 
of weight ; and since the history of these colonies falls 
in with that of England during those years as a com- 
ponent part of it, the writings of such a man as Eve- 
lyn have more than a literary interest for us. We 
shall find them abounding in passages bearing upon 



JOHN EVELYN. 295 

the causes then at work to bring the Nonconformists 
out of England, and later operating to separate the 
colonies from the home government. 

Evelyn was travelling on the Continent in 1641 ; 
but as neither his university nor professional studies 
were completed, he soon returned. The circum- 
stances of the time were not favorable to study. The 
young man had wealth, and friends at court. He was 
apparently looking forward to employment in the 
civil service. He was not a soldier, and by 1643 
there was little but fighting left to be done in England. 
The king was at Oxford, and the Parliament was about 
him, not in dutiful attendance, but represented by an 
army. The test-oaths required by the hostile factions 
made Hfe uncomfortable for a man in Evelyn's posi- 
tion. We find him writing in his Diary, — 

" The covenant being pressed, I absented myself ; but 
finding it impossible to evade the doing very unhand- 
some things, and which had been a great cause of my 
perpetual motions hitherto between Wotton and Lon- 
don, Oct. 2 I obtained a license of his Majesty, dated at 
Oxford and signed by the king, to travel again." 

It is of interest to follow, in his Journal, the course 
of an educated young man upon the Continent for 
about four years, near the middle of the seventeenth 
century. His remarks upon whatever came to his 
notice are often shrewd and entertaining, and their 
value is historical. In October of 1647 ^^ was back 
in London again, and though his Diary gives little 
information as to how he was spending his time, 
that little is enough to prove that he was work-, 
ing zealously in behalf of the king. On the 17th of 
January, 1649, he writes: "To London. I heard 
the Rebel Peters incite the Rebel Powers, met in the 



296 WELLS OF ENGLLSH. 

Painted Chamber, to destroy his Majesty." The 
crisis was close at hand. Evelyn was no less earnest 
in his efforts to save the king's life than Hugh Peters 
was to destroy it. Four days later we have the entry : 
" Was published my Translation of Liberty and Servi- 
tude, for the preface of which I was severely threat- 
ened." As the king was beheaded on the 30th 
following, any words of a subject were vain, except as 
a testimony. The passage wliich came near bringing 
the writer into jeopardy was no doubt this : " Never 
was there heard or read of a more equal and excellent 
form of government than that under which we have 
ourselves lived during the reign of our most gracious 
sovereign's halcyon days. If therefore we were the 
most happy of subjects, why do we attempt to render 
ourselves the most miserable of slaves? God is one, 
and better it is to obey one than many." To the 
above he adds, in Latin : " And this I say boldly, for 
there is not any liberty safer than to serve a good 
master, that is C ." There were few more fear- 
less speeches made or published during those last 
days of the king. 

The circumstances of the times made of Evelyn a 
political writer, although the bent of his mind was 
clearly towards the exceedingly quiet pursuits of 
landscape-gardening and natural science. In 1651, 
at a time when he appears to have been living in 
France, he published a bitterly sarcastic tract entitled 
*' Character of England." It was intended to show 
his countrymen how others saw them. The author's 
long residence abroad enabled him to draw those 
comparisons between France and England which have 
always been odious to the latter nation. The plan 
of the tract was that of an imaginary visit to London 



JOHN EVELYN. 297 

by a foreign gentleman. The general tone of the 
work may be gatJiered from one short extract : — 

"Arrived at the metropolis of civility, London, we put 
ourselves in coach with some persons of quality who 
came to conduct us to our lodgings; but neither was 
this passage without honor done to us ; the kennell dirt, 
roots, and ramshorns being favors which were frequently 
cast at us by the children and apprentices without re- 
proof, — civihties that in Paris a gentleman as seldom 
meets withal as with the contests of carmen, who in this 
town domineer in the streets, overthrow the hell-carts, — 
for so they name the coaches, — cursing and reviling at 
the nobles ; you would imagine yourself amongst a legion 
of devils, and in the suburbs of hell." 

There is a sort of family likeness to be traced 
between this picture and some pictures presented in 
"John Bull and his Island." 

The one thing which this imaginary visitor to Eng- 
land observes of most interest to those who study 
our colonial history, is the condition of the Noncon- 
forming population which was then thronging to these 
shores. As an adherent of the Church of England, 
Evelyn could not write of the Dissenters without strong 
feeling of aversion ; but it is easy to correct the bias 
of his judgment. He says of the Independents, — 

"All I can learn is, they are a refined and apostate 
sort of Presbyters ; or, rather, such as renounce all ordi- 
nation, as who having preached promiscuously to the 
people, and cunningly ensnared a great number of rich 
and ignorant proselytes, separate themselves into con- 
venticles, which they name congregations." 

This word "congregation," which names the basis of 
Congregationalism in New England, appears to have 
been coming into use at that time in a peculiar sense. 
It separated the Independents from the Presbyterians 



298 



WELLS OF ENGLISH. 



in their modes of church organization and govern- 
ment. This fact is of more significance than appears 
upon the surface. In England Church and State were 
closely identified, but the State was at the head ; in 
the colonies the same view of the two prevailed, but 
their relations were reversed. Church organizations 
formed in England were transferred to these shores 
intact. We have instances of the same thing in the 
removal of Hooker and others with their flocks from 
the Bay Colony to Connecticut. If Church and State 
were one in theory, and if there was no civil organiza- 
tion, then it made great difference when the State 
was evolved whether the Church after which it was 
modelled were Congregational or Presbyterian. Parish 
and precinct first gave form to the towns ; and in the 
next century, when chairtered rights and powers were 
annulled, the towns organized the State upon the 
Congregational basis. 

This leads us to inquire into Evelyn's relations to 
these colonies as a member of the Commissioners of 
Trade and Plantations. His Diary is ample for that 
purpose. The first meeting of the Board appears to 
have been held on May 26, 167 1. The entry of that 
date has the following suggestive passage : — 

*' What we most insisted on was to know the condition 
of New England, which appearing to be very independ- 
ent as to their regard to Old England or his Majesty, 
rich and strong as they now were, there were great de- 
bates in what style to write to them ; for the condition 
of that colony was such that they were able to contest 
with all other Plantations about them, and there was 
fear of their breaking from all dependence on this nation ; 
his Majesty therefore commended this affair more ex- 
pressly. We therefore thought fit in the first place to 
acquaint ourselves as well as we could of the state of 



JOHN EVELYN. 299 

that place, by some whom we heard of newly come from 
thence, and to be informed of their present posture and 
condition; some of our council were for sending them 
a menacing letter, which those who better understood 
the feverish and touchy humor of that colony, were 
utterly against." 

On the 6th of June following, Evelyn wrote in his 
Journal to precisely the same purport, — 

" I went to Council, where was produced a most exact 
and ample information of the state of Jamaica, and of 
the best expedients as to New England, on which there 
was a long debate ; but at length 't was concluded that, 
if any, it should be only a conciliating paper at first, 
or civil letter, till we had better information of the pres- 
ent face of things; since we understood they were a 
people almost upon the very brink of renouncing any 
dependence on the Crown." 

This was early for the home government to enter- 
tain fears that the colonies would break from their 
allegiance. These fears had, however, been felt for 
some time. They were, no doubt, occasioned in the 
first place by plain intimations on the part of emigrants 
that they did not intend to live longer under English 
rule. Again, the fact that so many came and so few 
returned was ominous. In the experience of Virginia 
and other early colonies, the difficulty had been in 
weaning the colonists from the mother country. The 
Puritans were more than weaned before they started. 
The fact that so few went back was not only suspicious 
in itself, but it accounts in good measure for the diffi- 
culty the Council had in getting reliable information 
as to the state of feeling here. There was no time 
when the colonies were not much better posted in 
regard to affairs in England than the people there 
were informed of colonial politics. 



300 WELLS OF ENGLISH. 

As the duties of the Council seem to have been 
chiefly advisory, its action was of less interest than 
were its consultations. June 20 Evelyn writes, — 

" To carry Colonel Middleton to Whitehall to my Lord 
Sandwich, our President, for some information he was 
able to give of the state of the colony in New England." 

The colonel was a military man, and his views in 
regard to New England appear in the record for 
August 3, — 

" The matter in debate was whether we should send 
a deputy to New England, requiring them of the Massa- 
chusetts to restore such to their limits and respective 
possessions as had petitioned the Council; this to be 
the open commission only, but in truth with secret in- 
structions to inform the Council of the condition of those 
colonies, and whether they were of such power as to be 
able to resist his Majesty and declare for themselves as 
independent of the Crown, which we were told, and 
which of late years made them refractory. Colonel 
Middleton, being called in, assured us they might be 
curbed by a few of his Majesty's first-rate frigates, to 
spoil their trade with the islands ; but though my Lord 
President was not satisfied, the rest were, and we did 
resolve to advise his Majesty to send commissioners 
with a formal commission for adjusting boundaries, etc., 
with some other instructions." 

The tenor of those " other instructions " has been 
given already. 

In his tract upon "Public Employment," printed 
in 1667, Evelyn declares his preference for a life in 
the country. "There is no man alive," he says, 
" that affects a country life more than myself; no 
man, it may be, who has more experienced the de- 
lights of it." This was clearly an honest expression 



JOHN EVELYN. 3OI 

of feeling and judgment ; he had a genuine love of 
Nature. His fondness for natural philosophy induced 
him to attempt a metrical verson of Lucretius. The first 
book only was printed in 1656. It is not greatly to 
the translator's discredit that his attempt was a failure. 
No EngHsh poet has yet accomplished the task which 
he undertook. He had the good sense to see that 
this was not work suited to his hand. In writing to 
one of his friends he says : '•' I know not what the word 
poet means." To another friend he writes: "You 
may be sure I was very young, and therefore very 
rash or ambitious, when I adventured on that knotty 
piece." 

The fondness which Evelyn felt for country life and 
country scenes led him to undertake and carry through 
the one work by which he has ever since been known. 
This is his " Sylva," — a work relating to the nature, 
the cultivation, and the uses of the timber trees of 
England. The work is not scientific, as we under- 
stand that term, but rather encyclopaedic. What would 
render it heavy reading at the present day is the cir- 
cumstance that it is overloaded with classical allusions 
and quotations. That it was just suited to the taste 
of that day is proved by the popular favor with which 
it was received. The book was brought out in 1662. 
In a letter written years later, the author makes this 
mention of the work : — 

"His late Majesty, Charles H,, was sometimes gra- 
ciously pleased to take notice of it to me, and that I had 
by that book alone incited a world of planters to repair 
their broken estates and woods, which the greedy Rebels 
had wasted and made such havoc of." 



INDEX. 



Allegory, in Ball, 44. 

Alleyn, the actor, mention of, 169, 

Alliteration, 35, 49, 91. 

Allusions, classica!, 198. 

Araadas and Barlow, 118. 

America, notice of in More, 78 ; colo- 
nization of, 118; designs of Spain 
upon, 119; an asylum, 119; refer- 
ence to, in Drayton, 151-2, 157; 
in Middleton, 176; in Crashawe, 
259; in L'Estrange, 268, 272; in 
Evelyn, 300. 

•' Angler, The Compleat," Marlowe 
mentioned in, 168. 

Anticipation of the Commonwealth, 
173- 

" Arcadia," of Greene, 136. 

Armada, Spanish, reference to, 1S7. 

Art, how concealed, 193 ; how to be 
judged, 206. 

Ascham, Roger, estimate of Elyot, 
82 ; quoted, loS. 

Atheism, materialistic, 163. 

"Atheist's Tragedy, The," 161, 165. 

Augustine, mention of, 44. 

Author, confounded with a character, 
167. 



B. 



Bacon, Sir Francis, estimate of, 77 ; 
his " New Atlantis," 78. 

Ball, John, as author, 37 ; con- 
trasted with Langton and Wyclif, 
37; with Langland, 38; his cour- 
age, 38; work, 38; position, 39; 



as agitator, 39 ; pictured by Wil- 
liam Morris, 39 ; his biographers, 
39 ; specimens of his verse, 40 ; art 
of putting things, 41 ; letter of, 
42. 

" Ballad of Agincourt," 153. 

Ballad- writing, 67. 

Barbol-r, John, compared with 
Chaucer, 21 ; with Thomas of 
Erceldoune, 23 ; his language, 21 ; 
" Story of Bruce," 24 ; extracts 
from, 24-2S ; style romantic, 25 ; 
precursor of Scott, 25 ; love of Na- 
ture, 25 ; humor, 27. 

" Barons' War, The," of Drayton, 

155- 

Baxter, Richard, 271. 

Belial, his place, 34. 

Boleyn, Anne, attended by Wyatt, 
90 ; trial of, 106. 

Bolton, Edmund, quoted, no, 141. 

Bradshaw, Henry, his work, 45 ; 
verse, 46 ; mention of Chaucer, 
47 ; extracts firom, 46-50 ; style 
dramatic, 48 ; rhymes, 49 ; com- 
panions, 50 ; character, 50. 

Browne, Thomas, how known, 229 ; 
his style, 229 ; earliest work, 230 ; 
" Religio Medici," 230 ; editions 
of, 230 ; imitations of, 230 ; his 
\'iew of Nature, 231 ; method of 
study, 232; extracts from, 230-31, 
234 ; perpetuated error, 234. 

Browning, Mrs., reference to, 59. 

Browuists, original Independents, 248. 

Bruce, Robert, Barbour's poem of, 
24. 

Bums, Robert, influenced by Dun- 
bar, 60. 



304 



INDEX. 



C. 



"Cabinet Council," of Raleigh, 120. 

Cadence, illustrated, 91. 

Calamy, Edward, beneficiary of Mar- 
ston's widow, 184. 

Campanella, his " City of the Sun," 
78. 

Carew, Richard, quoted, no- 

Cartwright, William, quoted, 
177 ; his reputation, 251 ; court 
playwright, 252 ; politics of, 253 ; 
extracts from, 253-57 ; prejudice 
against Puritans, 253-56 ; against 
Holland, 253. 

Censor condemns " Pygmalion's 
Image," 183. 

Chad, Saint, miracle of, 50. 

Challoner, Bishop, quoted, 231. 

Chamberlayne, William, his taste, 
281 ; subject-matter, 282 ; " Pha- 
ronnida," 282 ; style, 282 ; a soldier, 
283 ; physician, 284 ; criticised by 
Southey, 285 ; extracts from, 283- 
86 ; sympathies, 285- 

Chapman, George, personal history 
of, 125 ; Keats' sonnet to, 125 ; as 
translator, 126; compared with 
Pope, 126 ; suggestiveness to Flax- 
man, 126 ; extracts from, 128, 129, 
130; dramatic work, 127; why not 
popular, 127 ; comedies, 127 ; trag- 
edies, 129. 

" Character of England," Evelyn's, 
296. 

Chaucer, quoted, 14 : his material bor- 
rowed, 22 ; compared with Lang- 
land, 30 ; his wife, mention of, 30 ; 
reference to, 47. 

Chiastic order, 220. 

Chivalry in sixteenth century, 103. 

Choice of subject, 140, 142. 

Church and State, 298. 

Churchyard, Thomas, quoted, 106. 

Classical studies, 129 ; of Shakspeare, 
199. 

Claudian, translation of, by Elyot, 87. 

Coarseness in literature, 216. 

Codex Aureus, the Golden Book, 48. 

Coke, Sir Edward, mention of, 245. 

Coleridge, S. T., quoted, 232. 



" Colin Clout's Come Home Again," 
quoted, 121, 140. 

Collaboration, literary, 159, 174. 

Colonies suspected of disloyalty, 299 

Comedy, Roman, 127. 

Commonwealth, The, poets of, 273- 

Comparisons, 129. 

Content, recommended by Walton, 
221. 

Copyists, errors of, 21. 

Cotton, Charles, quoted, 219 ; ode to, 
279. 

Covenant, discussed by Evelyn, 295. 

Cowley, quoted, 260 ; mention of, 265 

Crashawe, Richard, his time, 259; 
education, 260 ; religion, 260 : po- 
etry, 261 ; manner, 261 ; extracts 
from, 261-64 ; lyric metres, 262 ; 
treatment of Nature, 264 ; retire- 
ment, 265 ; William, 259. 

Cribbers, literary, 195. 

" Cynthia," Queen Elizabeth, 122. 



" Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins," 
63. 

Daniel, George, quoted, 237. 

Daniel, Samuel, reputation of, 139; 
praised by Harvey, 139; compared 
with Shakspeare, 140 ; notice of 
by Spenser, 140 ; language of, 141 ; 
extracts from, 142-45 ; cause of 
failure, 142 ; compared with Spen- 
ser, 143 ; stanza of, 143 ; sonnet, 
144 ; a Marinist, 144 ; song-writer, 
145- 

" Daj's and Weeks," of Du Bartas, 
147. 

" Defence of Rhyme," by Daniel, 142. 

Dekker, Thomas, quoted, 198. 

Dialect, English, local, 23 ; writing, 
194. 

Dictionary, earliest Latin-English, 83. 

Dissenters characterized, 272, 297. 

Douglas, Gawin, mention of, 62. 

Douglas, James, mentioned by Bar- 
bour, 24. 

"Dover Court," meaning of, 100. 

" Dowsabel," of Drayton, 153. 



\ 



INDEX, 



305 



Drama, decline of, 205 ; in Shirley's 
day, 223. 

Drayton, Michael, popularity of, 
151 ; patriotism, 151 ; allusions to 
America, 151, 157; extracts from, 
152-57 ; lyric verse, 152 ; " Battle 
of Agincourt," 153 ; " Dowsabel," 
153 ; fairy scenes, 154 ; historical 
verse, 154; "The Barons' War," 
155 ; '* Poly-Olbion," 155. 

Du Bartas his " Days and Weeks," 

147- 
Dunbar, William, his likeness to 
Burns, 60 ; mentions early poets, 
61 ; manner, 62 ; extracts from, 63- 
65, 68 ; humor, 63 ; fancy, 63 ; 
preference for vision, 63 ; descrip- 
tion of morning, 64 ; use of re- 
frain, 65 ; macaronic poetry, 65. 



" Edward II.," of Marlowe, 172. 

Elizabeth, as poetess, 114 ; quoted by 
Puttenham, 116; compliments to, 
192. 

Ellis, Henry, quoted, 198. 

Elvot, Sir Thomas, mention of, by 
Nash, 82 ; by Ascham, 82 ; esti- 
mate of, by Hallam, 83 ; his Dic- 
tionary, 83 ; extracts from, 84, 87 ; 
his ideal of life and duty, 84 ; "The 
Governour," 85 ; plan of the work, 
86 ; translations, 89. 

English, Daniel's, 141; early, 30; 
middle, 23 ; fitted to translating, 
146. 

" English Poesie, The Arte of," no. 

Epithets, fitly chosen, 186. 

Erasmus, in England, 59 ; friend of 
More, 75. 

Erceldoune, Thomas of, or 
Thomas the Rhymer, 12 ; com- 
pared with Chaucer, 12 ; his lan- 
guage, 12; extracts from, 12, 15, 
16, 17, 18, 19 ; lilting measure, 13 ; 
rhymes, 13; love of Nature, 13 ; 
subject-matter, 14 ; prophecy, 14 ; 
mention of, by Barbour, 23. 

20 



Errors, popular, in colonial times, 
233. 

Evelyn, John, his " Diary," 294 ; 
politics, 29s ; extracts from, 295- 
301 ; threatened, 296 ; rural pur- 
suits, 296 ; relation to the colonies, 
298 ; translation of Lucretius, 301 ; 
his " Sylva," 301. 



F. 

"Faerie Queene," how published, 122. 

Fairy-land, where situated, 14. 

Fairy scenes, of Drayton, 154. 

" Faustus, Doctor, Tragical History 
of," 171; compared with Goethe's 
" Faust," 171. 

Fletham, Owen, quoted, 243. 

" Ferlie," fairy-lore, 19. 

Flaxman, indebted to Chairman, 126. 

Flowers, Herrick's love for, 215. 

Freethinking, English, 161. 

French language, in England and 
Scotland, 22. 

Froissart, quoted, 38. 

Fuller, Thomas, quoted, 114; his 
politics, 244 ; humor, 244 ; man- 
ner, 245 ; extracts from, 245-49 ; 
his wit, 246; verse, 246; popu- 
larity in New England, 246 ; 
proverbs from, 247 ; acquaintance 
with Puritans, 248 ; good-nature, 
248 ; tolerance, 249 ; compared 
with Walton, 250. 



Gaunt, John of, mentioned, 30. 

Genius, power of, 206. 

"Gentle," how applied to Wyatt, 93. 

Geraldine, Surrey's sonnet to, 105. 

" Golden Targe," of Dunbar, 64. 

" Governour, The," of Elyot, 85. 

Gramerie and divination, 17. 

Greene, Robert, his contribution to 
the drama, 132 ; time, 133 ; studies, 
133 ; character, 133 ; "Confessions," 
133 ; repentance, 134; critics, 134; 
apologists, 135 ; prose, 136; verse, 



3o6 



INDEX. 



136 ; dramatic work, 136 ; classical 
allusions, 136 ; defect, 137 ; extracts 
from, 137-8 ; compared with Lucre- 
tius, 137 ; mention of Shakspeare, 
138. 

" Greensleeves," sobriquet of Greene, 
138. 

Guarsie, Mary, mother of Marston, 
182. 



H. 

Hall, Bishop, his attack ou Marston, 
183. 

Hallam, his estimate of Elyot, 83. 

Harrington, Sir John, quoted, iii. 

Harvey, Gabriel, quoted, 185. 

Henry VIII. and the Pope, gt. 

Henryson, Robert, mention of, by 
Dunbar, 68 ; his use of the re- 
frain, 69 ; introduced pastoral 
themes and treatment, 70 ; extracts 
from, 69-71 ; " Robin andMakyn," 
70, 71. 

Herrick, Robert, his time, 211 ; 
" Hesperides," 211 ; boyhood, 212 ; 
naturalness, 213 ; inspiration, 214; 
extracts from, 213-15 ; inter- 
preter of Nature, 214 ; his fancy, 
214; fondness for flowers, 215; 
coarseness, 215. 

" Hesperides," of Herrick, 211. 

Heywood, Thomas, quoted, 108; 
representative of Elizabethan age, 
189 ; indifferent to publication, 
189 ; his subjects English, 189 ; 
wrote for his own day, 190 ; ex- 
tracts from, 190, 192-96 ; plays cop- 
ied, 191 ; their epic character, 191 : 
compliments to Elizabeth, 192 ; 
art, 193 ; command of language, 
193 ; use of dialect, 194 ; ral- 
lying of Puritans, 195 ; ridicule 
of literary cribbers, 195; songs, 
196. 

Historical writing in verse, 154. 

"History of the World," Raleigh's, 
120. 

Hobs, the tanner of Tamworth, 194. 

Holland, a refuge for Puritans, 203 ; 



allusions to, 253, 254 ; lampoons on, 
292. 

Homer, translation of, by Elyot, 87 ; 
by Chapman and by Pope, 126 ; 
influence of, 129. 

Howard, Henry, his time, 105 ; 
compared with Petrarch, 105 ; 
"Geraldine," 106 ; extracts from, 
105-9 ; theme, 106 ; sonnets, 107 ; 
first to use blank verse, 107 ; trans- 
lations, 108 ; popularity, 109. 

Howe, John, defended by Marvell, 
288. 

Humor, Scotch, example of, 27; dry, 
79, 244. 



I. 



Individuality, 229. 
Inventory, rhymed, joo. 
Ipswich, Wolsey's College at, 54. 
Italian literature, in England, 133. 



J- 



Jonson, Ben, quoted, 147 ; praised 
Drayton's work, 151 ; canonized 
by Herrick, 213 ; mention of, 236 ; 
compliments Cartwright, 251. 



K. 

Keats, quoted, 125, 

L. 

" Lament for the Makers," Dunbar's, 
61. 

Langland, William, confounded 
with Piers Plowman, 29 ; his time, 
30; compared with Chaucer, 30; 
his relation to the Church, 31 ; ex- 
tracts from, 31-35; studies, 33; 
verse, 35 ; manner, 34 ; as reformer, 
35 ; contrasted with John Ball, 38- 

Langton, Stephen, mention of, 37. 

L'EsTRANGE, Sir Roger, a pam- 
phleteer, 266 ; his time, 266 ; 



INDEX. 



307 



extracts from, 267-72 ; his view of 
toleration, 269 ; style, 270 ; politics, 
272. 

Literary reputation, remarks on, by 
Elyot, 84. 

Literature, early legendary, 45 ; a cal- 
ling, 239 ; English, 258. 

" Lives of the Saints," 45. 

Lollards, mention of, 35. 

" Lovers, The Jealous," of Randolph, 
240. 

Lovelace, Richard, the Cavalier 
poet, 274 ; his loyalty, 274 ; for- 
tune, 274; wrote in prison, 275; 
politics, 276; extracts from, 274, 
276-79 ; personal history, 277 ; 
verse, 277 ; odes, 279. 

Lowell, James Russell, quoted, 124. 

Lownes, Humfrey, quoted, 147. 

Lucretius, a model for Greene, 137; 
translation of, by Evelyn, 301. 

Luther's writings criticised by More, 
76. 

Lyric verse in narrative poems, 28. 



M. 



Macaronic poetry, 65. 

Madoc, story of, in Drayton, 136. 

Makyn, a diminutive, 70. 

" Mamilia," of Greene, 134. 

Mannerisms of Shirley, 224. 

Marinists, English, 144, 145. 

Marlowe, Christopher, earliest 
English dramatist, 166 ; translations 
of, 166; his character, 167; con- 
founded with Faustus, 167 ; his 
pastoral praised by Walton, 168 ; 
" Tamburlaine," 168 ; earliest trag- 
edy in blank verse, 168 ; characters 
overdrawn, 169; writing to order 
for popular actor, 169 ; rhythm, 
170 ; extracts from, 169-72 ; his 
"Doctor Faustus," 171 ; compared 
with Goethe's " Faust," 171 ; 
political forecasting, 173. 

Marston, John, his time, 182 ; fam- 
ily, 182 : father's will, 183 ; extracts 
from, 183-88; satires, 183 ; de- 
fence, 184 ; career, 184 ; relation to 



Puritanism, 184; compared with 
Shakspeare, 185; fancy, 186; pa- 
triotism, 187 ; jest at the expense of 
philosophers, 188. 

Marvell, Andrew, a public man, 
287 ; his inspiration, 287 ; a pam- 
phleteer, 288 ; his prose, 288; loy- 
alty, 288 ; extracts from, 289-93 
his wit, 290 ; politics, 291 ; com- 
pared wiih Butler, 291 ; friend of 
Milton, 292. 

Massinger, Philip, record of his 
burial, 204 ; obscurity of his life, 
205 ; value of his work, 207 ; his 
industry, 207 ; extracts from, 208, 
209; style, 209 ; art, 210 ; subjects, 
210. 

Masson, David, quoted, 148. 

Mephistophiles, Marlowe's, 171. 

Mercia, 47. 

Metres, English, 152. 

" Miching," the word explained, 

lOI. 

MiDDLETON, Thomas, contemporary 
of Shakspeare, 174; his industry, 
174; fellow-workers, 174; editors, 
175; rank as dramatist, 175; as 
poet, 175 ; allusions to America, 
176; dislike of Puritans, 176 ; ex- 
tracts from, 177-81 ; skit at Pur- 
itan dislike of music, 177 ; sat- 
irizes the Familists, 178; "Mayor 
of Quinborough," 179. 

Milton, quoted, 34, 107 ; mention of, 
120; his father, 148; contrasted 
with Chamberlayne, 282 ; friend of 
Marvell, 292. 

Monks, as chroniclers, 44. 

Moralities and mysteries, 33. 

More, Sir Thomas, his Utopia, 73; 
work in English, 73; estimate of, 
74 ; extracts from, 74-76, 78, 79 ; 
reputation, how gained, 74 ; esti- 
mate of readers, 75 ; profession, 
75 ; friendship with Erasmus, 75 ; 
criticism of Luther's work, 76; 
imitators, 77, 78. 

Morris, William, quoted, 39. 

Miiller, Max, his "law of laziness," 
74- 

Music, Puritan dislike of, 177, 225. 



308 



INDEX. 



N. 



Names, Puritan, 23. 

Nature, feeling for, among early poets, 
26; questioned by Herrick, 214; 
defined by Browne, 231. 

New England, doggerel verse in, 197; 
humor, 244 ; dialect, 247 ; mis- 
sionary field, 249 ; early literature 
of, 266 ; suspected, 268 ; Dissenting, 
272 ; disloyal, 300. 

Night fancifully characterized, 186. 



o. 

Oberon's palace, 154. 

" Ordinary, The," of Cartwright, 254- 

56. 
Overflow, 282. 



P. 

Pamphleteers, 266. 

" Paradise Lost," has matter from 

" Faustus" of Marlowe, 172. 
Parker, Bishop, ridiculed by Marvell, 

290. 
Parliament disowns the king, 276. 
Pastoral poem analyzed, 70, 71. 
Peasant War, 38. 
Personification, partial, 209. 
Peters, Hugh, mentioned by Evelyn, 

295- 

Petrarch, Wyatt compared with, 93. 

" Pharonnida," of Chamberlayne, 282. 

Philosophers, ridiculed by Marston, 
188. 

Philosophy, Greek, taught by Eras- 
mus, 59. 

" Piers Plowman, Vision of," 29. 

Plato, his " Republic," 77. 

Plays, how to be judged, 175 ; fashion 
of, 179; how stolen, 191 ; historical 
and narrative, 191. 

" Plowman's Tale, The," 29. 

Poetry, Scottish, indigenous, 12 ; mac- 
aronic, 65 ; Saxon, 67 ; pastoral, 70 ; 
in sixteenth century, 104 ; early, ar- 
tistic and artificial, 112; lyric, 258. 



Poets laureate, 52 ; early Scottish, 61, 
62 ; Italian and Spanish, 89, 258 ; 
Puritan, 273. 

" Poly-Olbion, The," 155. 

" Poor Richard," reference to, 41, 95. 

Pope's literary methods, 160. 

Poverty, praised by early writers, 33- 

" Prerogative of Parliament," Ra ■ 
leigh's, 120. 

Presbyterians Puritanic, 270 ; ridicule 
of, 267. 

Primer, a church book, 75. 

Printing, effect of its invention, 104. 

Puns, by Skelton, 57. 

Puritan, in literature, 162 ; carica- 
tured, 164; habits of thought, 133 ; 
disliked by Middleton, 176 ; rallied 
by Heywood, 195 ; reform, 207 ; 
sentiment, 258 ; character, 267 ; 
Presbyterian, 269 ; poets, 273. 

Publication, by the dramatists, iqo. 

PuTTENHAM, George, time of, no; 
work, III ; wrote for the court, 
112 ; remarks on quantity, 113 ; ex- 
tracts from, 114, 1x5; his estimate 
of poets, 116. 



Quantity, metrical, 113. 



R. 

Raleigh, Sir Walter, affairs of, 
117; expeditions for colonizing 
America, 118; colony of Roanoke, 
118; title escheated, 118: city of, 
118; views of America, 119; early 
training, 119; purpose, 119; repu- 
tation, 120 ; " History of the 
World," 120 ; " Prerogative of Par- 
liament," 120; acquaintance with 
Spenser, 121 ; extracts from, 121, 
123 ; memorial, 123 ; Lowell's tribute 
to, 124. 

Randolph, Thomas, protegi of Ben 
Jonson, 236 ; reputation in his own 
day, 237; a dramatist, 237; ex- 
tracts from, 238-43 ; his calling, 



INDEX, 



309 



339; genius, 240; conditions of 
work, 243 ; fairness of judgment, 
243 ; quoted, 246. 
Rastell, William, his opinion of More, 

74- 

Reading, habits of, 74. 

Realism, in literature, 208. 

Refrain, the, 65 ; how used by Henry- 
son, 69. 

" Religio Medici," 230. 

" Republic," of Plato, 77. 

Revolution, literary, 283. 

Rhyme, sectional, 96, 97 ; consonantal, 
97; in blank verse, 98; in verse, 
98 ; Marlowe's, 170 ; old, in Hey- 
wood, 195 ; double, 200. 

*' Richard the Redeless," of Langland, 

30. 
" Richard, Poor," reference to, 41, 91. 
Roanoke, Raleigh's colony of, 118. 
" Robin and Makyn " of Henryson^ 

70. 
Roundheads, disfigured churches, 245. 
"Royal Slave," of Cartwright, 252, 

253- 
Ruskin, critic of Flaxman, 127. 



^cots, Mary Queen of, mentioned, 115. 

Scott, Sir Walter, indebted to Bar- 
bour, 25. 

Shairp, Principal, quoted, vii. 

Shakspeare, quoted, 53, 85, 185 ; com- 
pared with Greene, 132 ; with Mar. 
lowe, 185. 

" Shepherd of the Ocean," Raleigh, 
122. 

Shirley, James, remembered by his 
lyrics, 223 ; mistook his calling, 
223 ; last of Elizabethan dramatists, 
223 ; extracts from, 224-28 ; his 
disappointment, 227; cause of fail- 
ure, 228; writer of songs, 228. 

Skeat, W. W., quoted, 31. 

Skelton, John, time of, 52 ; laureate- 
ship, 52 ; manner, 52 ; verse, 54 ; 
extracts from, 54-58; his puns, 57; 
dramatic work, 59. 

Socrates, as naturalist, 218. 



Song-writing, 67. 

Sonnet, improved by Surrey, 106 ; 

Daniel's, 144. 
Southey, quoted, 285. 
Spenser, quoted, 121-23, and Raleigh, 

121 ; his notice of Daniel, 140. 
Spenser Society publications, 197. 
Stanza, Daniel's and Spenser's, 143. 
Stranger, a non-resident, 204. 
Style, cultivated, 160; overwrought, 

226. 
Surnames in fourteenth century, 43. 
Surrey. See Howard. 
Swinburne, his essay on Chapman, 13 1. 
Sylvester, Joshua, his translation 

of Du Bartas, 147 ; tributes to, 147 ; 

praised by Lownes, 147 ; furnished 

material to Milton, 148; original 

work of, 149; extracts from, 149, 

150. 



T. 

Tacitus, cited, 235. 

" Tamburlaine " of Marlowe, earliest 
tragedy in blank verse, 168. 

Taste, literary, 281. 

Taylor, John, the water-poet, 197 ; 
a writer of doggerel verse, 197 ; per- 
sonal notices of, 198 ; his classical 
allusions, 199 ; double rhymes, 200 ; 
rhyming titles, 200; politics, 202; 
extracts from, 198-203 ; refers to 
Amsterdam, 203 ; influence in New 
England, 203. 

Theatres, closing of, 237, 252. 

"Thistle and the Rose," 65. 

Titles, rhyming, 200. 

Toleration, Fuller's, 249. 

TouRNEUR, Cyril, co-worker with 
others, 158 ; gained little reputa- 
tion, 160 ; freethinking characters, 
161; "Atheist's Tragedy," 161; 
extracts from, 162-65 ; character- 
izes the Puritans, 162 ; atheist char- 
acters, 163 ; his Puritan, 164. 

Tragi-comedy, a failure, 228. 

Translating, a patriotic service, 127; 
work of, 146 ; influence of, 149 ; 
Marlowe's, 166 ; Evelyn's, 301. 



310 



INDEX. 



TussER, Thomas, his place, 95 ; time, 
96 ; work, 96 ; use of rhyme, 96 ; 
extracts from, 96-101 ; sectional 
rhymes, 96 ; inverse rhymes, 
98 ; variety of rhymes, 99 ; popu- 
larity in America, 100 ; language, 
101 ; use of proverbs, lor. 

Tyler, Wat, mention of, 30, 38. 

u. 

" Utopia," of More, how written, 73. 



Vericour, M. de, quoted, 42. 

Verse, Skeltonian, 58; linked, 99; 
blank, first used by Surrey, 107 ; 
in tragedy, 168 ; doggerel in New 
England, 197 ; commendatory, 251. 

Virgil, as magician, 167 ; translation 
of, 108. 

Virginia, colonization of, 118; refer- 
ence to in Drayton, 152; in Mid- 
dleton, 176. 



W. 

Walton, Izaak, commends Mar- 
lowe, 168 ; his diversion, 217 ; "The 
Compleat Angler," 218 ; interest in 
Nature, 218; popularity, 219 ; lit- 
erary skill, 220; extracts from, 220- 
22 ; study of Nature, 222 ; verse, 
222 ; quoted, 250. 

Werburge, Saint, 46. 

Witchcraft, 271. 

Wither, George, quoted, 236. 

Wolsey, his character, 53 ; ancestry, 
58. 

Wotton, Sir Henry, quoted, 217. 

Wyatt, Sir Thomas, his work, 89; 
education, 89 ; services, 90 ; themes, 
90 ; escort to Anne Boleyn, 90 ; re- 
mark on divorce of Henry VIII., 
90; extracts from, 91-94; finish 
of his work, 91, 92 ; prose, 93 ; di- 
plomacy, 93 ; defence, 93. 

Wyclif, mention of, 37. 



708 



'^^%h 



4 







i^.^^ 






-^'' 






•^oo^ 



^^ v^ 



.-^^ 




^0^ V 



.^ % 









"oo^ 



-0' v"' " ^ 









, X -^ <^ 







\ 















^^ 






<r. 





: •-lis ll'lil 



ill 







